13 Assassins (2010)

Based on the screenplay by Kaneo Ikegami
Screenplay by Daisuke Tengan
Directed by Takashi Miike

For those that are familiar with Takashi Miike, he is a prolific and expedient director. With his latest film, 13 Assassins he has shifted gears, and essentially remade a classic Japanese tale. Much like Seven Samurai, the story involves a rogue group of samurai who must band together for a cause of honor, and so they can get paid, of course.

Shinzaemon Shimada (Koji Yakusho) is tasked with the heavy burden of putting a stop to Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki), a feudal lord who has become obsessed with killing, maiming, and raping, and won't stop his campaign, even at the urging of the Shogun council. The problem is, if he were invalidated as Lord, it would be a serious detriment to the political rankings of those who let him get to where he was. So Shinzaemon Shimada is told to hire a group of samurai, and do whatever he can to stop Naritsugu.

After grumbling that there aren't any good samurai anymore, he manages to recruit 9 men outside of himself, his closest trainee, and his friend's closest trainee. The pack of ronin quickly take to the task, hunting Naritsugu down, planning their eventual showdown with him.

This journey, which takes them on a series of strategic moves against Naritsugu, brings them all closer together, all bonded by the samurai code, which says a samurai only dies happily in service to another.

While this isn't instantly Miike's best film, it is his biggest, and by far his most serious. It still has his trademark brand of humor in tiny moments, but for the most part it's a classic Hollywood western, right down to the music. This is Miike in mainstream mode, and it seems as though he's slowed down, only doing 2 films a year instead of 5-10 like he has in the past. If that marks a period where he makes bigger, more serious films, I welcome it openly.

13 Assassins is by far Miike's crowning achievement as a filmmaker, even if it isn't his best film. It has everything a big, epic movie should have: heart, humor, good, evil, characters you can like and relate to, all while telling an interesting, sweeping period story. Of course since it's Miike so there's no shortage of bloodshed, but the uninitiated might be turned off by the stark use of brutal violence. In the long run, though, this is a soul crushing film, although it's played lightly, no one could have ever had a positive outcome in this story, and that's ultimately the point.

Miike's strained sense of morality is again on display, asking the tough questions, such as "If you see nothing wrong with killing, would you be able to stifle your anger if someone killed you?" Interesting questions not usually asked, but as always, death is the great equalizer for Miike, he loves to tell stories of killers and evil men, but even more he likes to kill them, to see how they die. Here more than any of his previous films, it's not pretty.

Like many of his previous films though, this one is pretty much all about honor and how they relate to the characters at hand, through a series of flashbacks, and the guilt Shimada feels for not stopping Naritsugu earlier. Not to mention I can't remember the last film I saw that had more than one Harikari in it. I'm sure that will be outdone in his next film, Death of a Samurai.

9.6/10 (A)