Japan’s other great movie director besides Kurosawa is Takashi Miike. Born in 1960, he’s already got more than 80 directorial credits under his belt since the early ‘90s, producing movies at a furious rate. His works are extremely different and span every imaginable genre, from children’s movies (like Yatterman) to torture porn. He has done superhero comedies, art movies and yakuza dramas, and with 13 Assassins he is presenting a remake of a classic 1963 samurai movie based on historical characters.
In 1835 or thereabouts, the shogun’s brother, Naritsugu, is an evil bastard who rapes other men’s wives and kills entire families for sport (like, using them for target practice). Being powerful enough to be effectively untouchable, a couple of samurai who have suffered unbearable dishonor over Naritsugu’s actions, decide to gather some allies and kill him. These allies will have to be really tough guys, however, as Naritsugu is constantly protected by scores of loyal soldiers. A big, big, big battle ensues, complete with explosions and collapsing buildings.
I admit I have not seen the 1963 version of the movie (but I want to). The 2010 version has, as Miike’s movies always have, excellent and impressive production values, and the era and its people are realized in exceptional detail, but the story was too simple to be satisfying to me. The bad guy is too obviously made out to be over-the-top evil for no other reason than to get what’s coming to him, and the big battle that takes up the entire second half of the movie is, in my honest opinion, boring. There are no especially climactic moments during the battle, which means that it just becomes exhausting and bland to watch, even if it does feature the serial implementation of a string of different tactics.
I am a great fan of a number of Miike’s movies (particularly the very stylish Zebraman and Izo, both from 2004, and Zebraman 2 from 2010), but for all its slick cinematography (and even a bit of CGI) 13 Assassins did not impress me much.
13 Assassins is out in UK cinemas 6th May 2011.
Director: Takashi Miike
Cast: Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya, Goro Inagaki and others
Runtime: 126 min
Country: Japan
Film Rating: 
