13 Assassins

The Return of Classic Samurai Epic

The Story:

It is the end of Japan’s feudal era. A group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war torn future.

Lord Naritsugu is a sadistic and terrifying ruler, a man who goes to great lengths to bring fear to the people and so romanticized with the ways of war and death that his leadership is questioned. His reckless behavior is seen as too high risk for the nation should he ascend to an higher position, therefore respected samurai Shinzaemon is secretly called on to gather a team of samurai to assassin him.

Release Date: September 25, 2010 (Japan)
Distributor: Toho Company (Japan), Magnet Releasing (USA)
Directed By: Takashi Miike (Dead or Alive, Family, Visitor Q, Ichi the Killer)
Starring: Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya, Goro Inagaki
Budget: $6,000,000
Gross Revenue: $784,986 (USA) $17,054,213 (worldwide)

Review:

Akira Kurosawa is probably the only known film director from Japan, and we also probably never have seen again an epic samurai movies after Kurosawa’s works, namely Seven Samurai, Ran, Yojimbo, and Kagemusha. Now, we must note Takashi Miike, who used to known as controversial filmmaker for his preference to violent and bizarre scenes.

13 Assassins begins with slow pace, tries to describe how cruel is the evil Lord Naritsugu. He is the former Shogun’s son and the current Shogun’s brother, which makes him above the law. As samurai code of honor is to serve his master, no matter how bad the master is, none of his servant dares to challenge Naritsugu. Fortunately, there is Shinzaemon, old samurai who used to work for Naritsugu’s father. Shinzaemon then gather more samurais until reach the number of 13, and plan to ambush Naritsugu and his 200 guards in a small village.

Now, this is where the movie shows its strength. The fighting between 13 assassins against 200 soldiers takes almost half of the movie’s duration, probably the longest battle scene we’ve ever seen. Not just a usual battle, but with the samurai style! Traps, explosives, bows and arrows, one-on-one sword fighting, and other tricks that we used to saw in samurai movies are all there. You can also feel the exhaustion of the sword masters during the later part of the battle, especially when they’re outnumbered by the enemies. It feels like their swords are only moved by spirit rather than by bodies and skills.

About the characters, you’d probably having difficulty to remember the 13 assassins’ names and faces, as their background stories only described in a glance. Although, this film features one of the most villainous characters ever in the form of Lorn Naritsugu. To him, human’s life and dignity are valueless, as they’re only a servants whose sole duty is to serve their master in every way possible. During the battle, Naritsugu’s face is also cold and without expression, even when his life is threatened, as battle is just like a game for him.

It’s not the fights and visual effects that make a good samurai movie, as we can see that in numerous Hollywood films. It’s the soul and spirit of samurai, along with their code of honor, that rarely depicted in western production. 13 Assassins managed to capture all of that perfectly, which makes this one an epic.

My Rating: A-

IMDb user rating: 7.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 96%

Metacritic: 87/100

Yahoo! critics: n/a

Yahoo! users: A

Your Ratings: (2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.