13 Assassins (2010) [Blu-ray]
Action | Adventure | Drama

Cult director Takeshi Miike (Ichi The Killer, Audition) delivers a bravado action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a brave group of elite samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and his army to prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war torn future.

Storyline: In 1844, the peace of Feudal Japan is threatened by cruel Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira, who is politically rising and getting closer to his half-brother, the shogun. After the harakiri of the Namiya clan leader, samurai Shinzaemon Shimada is summoned by the shogun's advisor Sir Doi of the Akashi Clan to listen to the tragedy of Makino Uneme, whose son and daughter-in-law have been murdered by Naritsugu. Then Sir Doi shows a woman with arms, legs and tongue severed by Naritsugu and she writes with her forearm a request to Shinza to slaughter Naritsugu and his samurai. Shinza promises to kill Naritsugu and he gathers eleven other samurais and plots a plan to attack Naritsugu in his trip back to the Akashi land. But the cunning samurai Hanbei Kitou that is responsible for the security of his master foresees Shinza's intent. Shinza decides to go with his samurai through the mountain, where they find the hunter Koyata that guides them off the mountain and joins the group. Now the thirteen men... Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, June 29, 2011 -- The only thing you can expect when going into a Takashi Miike film is the unexpected. The über-prolific Japanese auteur has helmed over 70 theatrical features, TV shows, and straight-to-video offerings since 1991—that's 3.5 outings a year, including the span between 2001 and 2002, during which he made a baker's dozen worth of films—and he's dabbled in just about every genre, from westerns (Sukiyaki Western Django) and kid movies (The Great Yokai War) to yakuza epics (Dead or Alive) and my personal favorite, the nutso zombie-musical-claymation-family drama/comedy Happiness of the Katakuris. Of course, he's best known for pushing the boundaries of extreme cinema in the ultraviolent Ichi the Killer, the sadistic Audition, and, most explicitly, in the taboo-busting Visitor Q, which voyeuristically revels in incest, necrophilia, and "lactation sex." Miike frequently courts controversy, and this makes it doubly unexpected that his latest film is so comparatively traditional. A remake of a 1963 film of the same name, 13 Assassins fits neatly into the classic samurai movie mold. Instead of overturning the genre—as his reputation would suggest—Miike has simply reinvigorated it, to great effect. If films like Seven Samurai, Sword of Doom, and The 47 Ronin are your particular cup of green tea, 13 Assassins will go down just as easy.

Like most samurai epics, the film's first act bulges with exposition—setting up the political situation—and while you might have a hard time initially keeping track of who's who as you're introduced to several key players in quick succession, the relationships and rivalries are clarified over time. (Don't get too hung up on it if the subtitles whiz by too fast.) The film begins in 1844, as Akashi clan elder Zusho Mamiya commits slow, brutally painful seppuku in front of a large estate. The ritual suicide is a protest against the shogun's younger brother, Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), a cruel, bellicose feudal lord whose rapid ascent to power threatens to disrupt the country's longstanding peace. Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira), a top shogun official, can't conscionably allow Naritsugu to assume leadership—he knows this would be disastrous for everyone—so he arranges a secret meeting with a semi-retired mid-level samurai, Shinzaemon (the excellent Koji Yakusho, of Shall We Dance), to present evidence of Naritsugu's crimes.

Miike establishes right off the bat how casually callous Naritsugu is, showing us a flashback where the evil heir rapes another lord's daughter-in-law and then hacks off the terrified woman's husband's head. Naritsugu is psychotic and remorseless—his sadism comes from boredom and privilege— and Inagaki, a member of the boy band SMAP, plays him with an emotionless expression that's genuinely terrifying. This is a guy who takes no real joy in his heinous actions; he does them simply because he can. Nothing excites him. The real kicker is when Sir Doi introduces Shinzaemon to an armless, legless, tongueless woman that Naritsugu disfigured and took to Edo as his personal sexual plaything. When asked what kind of retribution she'd like to see handed down on Naritsugu, the naked woman—bleeding from her eyes—holds a calligraphy brush between her teeth and writes "total massacre" on a sheet of parchment.

It's an unnerving scene—of the few distinctly "Miike" moments in the film—but it gets even stranger when the stoic Shinzaemon suddenly breaks into a grin, shaking with excitement. Then we realize: this is the moment he's been waiting for his entire life. As a samurai during peacetime, he's done nothing of consequence, and this is his chance to die "a noble death" in the service of a greater cause. Tasked with assassinating Naritsugu, Shinzaemon assembles an elite unit of eleven other samurai—including his wayward nephew, Shinrokuro (Takayuki Yamada), veteran warrior Saheita (Hiroki Matsukata), badass ronin Kujuro (Tsuyoshi Ihara), and the spear-wielding Heizo (Arata Furuta), who's old enough to remember the times of war—and together they conspire to ambush Naritsugu's entourage at the mountain pass town of Ochiai. On the way there, they free a trapped hunter, Koyata (Yusuke Iseya), and bring him along as a guide. Koyata is a clear homage to Kikuchiyo, Toshiro Mifune's character in Seven Samurai—both are wannabe samurai of low birth who eventually prove their merit in battle.

And boy is there ever a battle in 13 Assassins. If the first half of the film is slow and talky, bound to the "gather up the troops" conventions of the men-on-a-mission genre, the last fifty minutes are pure, non-stop, kinetic action movie bliss. Inside the village, fortified with booby traps, explosives, and makeshift blockades woven from tree branches, the thirteen fighters go blade-to-blade against two hundred of Naritsugu's troops, led by Shinzaemon's childhood friend and present nemesis, the bitter but loyal Hanbei (Misachika Ichimura). The town becomes a labyrinth of death, and around every corner Shinzaemon's men wait with new surprises, like flaming bulls and flammable oil slicks. It's like Home Alone in feudal Japan, but that analogy doesn't do 13 Assassins justice at all. The action is gritty, intense, and surprisingly realistic. (There's gore, but no real Kill Bill-style arterial bloodletting.)

Of course, reality is stretched at times. In one of the film's best scenes, the enemy troops come upon a courtyard where seemingly hundreds of katana have been stuck haphazardly into the ground. Their purpose becomes apparent when one of the samurai starts dual-wielding swords as he rushes his adversaries—as soon as he spears a baddie through the chest he simply picks up a new blade and continues his rampage. Hell. Yes. It's also worth noting that Koyata, the hunter, does his fighting with two grapefruit-sized rocks in slings, bludgeoning foes to death left and right. When Shinzaemon's men first find him in the woods, one of them asks him if he's actually the spirit of a tanuki—a woodland creature that shows up often in Japanese folklore—and Miike leaves this possibility open for interpretation. A key clue is the fact that tanuki in myth are renowned for having enormous testicles which they can use in battle, an image mirrored in Koyata's scrotal-like slings.

This one ode to the supernatural aside, 13 Assassins is very much grounded in the historical Japan of the 1840s, a time when samurai culture was waning, slowly supplanted by the modernization and industrialization that would accompany the start of the Meiji era in 1868. This setting gives the film its cultural context; it's characters wrestle with the tenants of the bushido code of conduct, with Hanbei representing the tradition of blind honor-unto-death—even when serving a despicable master like Naritsugu—and Shinzaemon as something of a "last samurai," half-aware of the changes about to take place in Japanese society. There's meaning here if you look for it—and you're familiar enough with Japanese culture to know where to look—but you might be too busy gaping at the insane action Miike puts on screen to catch all of the subtext. Thankfully, 13 Assassins is good enough that you won't mind watching it all over again.

Miike has a reputation as a totally gonzo filmmaker, but he's proved quite a few times that he's capable of creating mature, even moving stories. Add 13 Assassins to the list; it stays firmly within the conventions of the traditional samurai genre, but it does so extremely well, reminding us of why there are certain conventions in the first place. Put another way, this movie kicks all kinds of ass. Magolia's Blu-ray release looks and sounds great as well, so there's no reason not to pick this one up if you're interested in sword-swinging action. Highly recommended!

[CSW] -4- It was what I expected and more. Do not be put off by the following statement because it maintained just the right mixture of action, drama, suspense, comedic relief, and more action in just the right proportions so that you really won't notice but - - the final battle scene lasted over fifty minutes. It has the right mixture to make for a wonderful adventure that should not be missed by any action-adventure fan, plus it depicts the end of an era that should and will always be remembered.
[V4.0-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

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