13 Assassins

Starring: Kôji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yûsuke Iseya

Synopsis:

The year is 1844. A young lord rapes and kills with impunity by virtue of his political connections. Though the era of the samurai is fading, an honest government official covertly enlists thirteen swordsmen to assassinate this sadistic lord before he can seize more power. With the clock ticking, the assassins lay a deadly trap for the lord and his army of bodyguards, culminating in one of the bloodiest, muddiest swordfights ever put to film.

I am a fan of Takashi Miike’s work, let’s get that out of the way first. The reason that I state that immediately may become obvious as the review continues but it’s more to do with expectations and what 13 Assassins actually delivered.

When I heard that Miike was to do a traditional Samurai movie I met it with interest and excitement at what his take might be? We’ve had some controversial, highly stylised and inventive sequences in his work so I was intrigued as to what he might come up with. I expected a kind of anti-Akira Kurowasawa picture that would bend and break the genre into Miike’s vision of how he would see a Samurai legend. What I never guessed at was the film being a faithful, traditional, epic piece of work that hardcore Kurowasawa fans could appreciate and love.

The movie clocks in at 2 hours and twenty minutes. For the most part of that running time, the action is through dialogue and the interplay with the main characters. Miike is very clear on the fact he is sticking to Samurai traditions from the outset. The movie begins with a Samurai committing jūmonji giri (a even more painful version of har-kiri wihtout a second to help out) and the reasons for it provide the characters with their motivation for doing what they’re going to do; assassinate a prominent figure in the form of Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira. Matsudaira is an insanely cruel ruler who believes that the people are servants and expendable and there for his pleasure, at any cost. Because he is looked upon as family by the Shogun, he is normally untouchable. As the Samurai serve the people they want to stop Matsudaira from killing and maiming anybody else; also as becomes apparent he is dangerous enough to threaten all of Japan with his madness. I saw it as a band of heroes looking to kill a Caligula or Hitler before he gets to full power.

So, the majority of the movie is made up of getting the 13 “Assassins” together under the leadership of Shinzaemon Shimada. Most of them follow Shimada out of giri – duty and loyalty – others have differing reasons. The Thirteenth just happens to want a bit of fun after being paid to guide the band out of a short cut that had led them to being lost in a forest.

This culminates in a 40 minute battle between the 200 men protecting Lord Naritsugu and the 13. This sequence is a well realised series of battles in a rigged village. I guess the 13 Assassins were the ancestors of the A-Team judging by the way they created secret walls, and booby-trapped buildings.

The movie is sumptuously shot with an almost panoramic attention to the locations. For a movie reported to have cost $6M it looks a lot more. As I’ve said, Miike has made this movie mindful of tradition; from the style of costumes down to the look of the villages. There are only two potential Miike moments in 13 Assassins; one where we see the results of Naritsugu’s cruelty and what he has had done to one poor woman, and towards the end we see Bison that have been set on fire, running along the streets of the village where the final battle is taking place. Other than that, there are no overblown make-up effects or extreme gore. The battle scene is bloody but not gratuitously so.

Summary:

If this is the way that Takashi Miike is going mainstream then I like it a lot. Although I do like his wilder movies, like Ichi the Killer and the Dead or Alive movies, this is a more mature work that oozes style and quality all of it’s own. The acting’s great, the writing’s great, the action’s great. Highly recommended movie that will have a cross appeal and perhaps get Miike finally recognised by Hollywood . Whether that would be a good or a bad thing remains to be seen. If he got the job of Director of 20th Century Fox’s The Wolverine, I’d be more than happy.

8 out of 10 (Wayfarer)

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