13 Assassins

13 Assassins, or Juusannin no Shikaku, is a samurai film from Ichi the Killer director Miike Takashi, and apparently a remake of a 60s film of the same name. In the end, it was in no way original, a pretty formulaic jidaigeki story of a band of rebels and ronin getting together for the greater good – in this case, to assassinate the corrupt and evil brother of the Shougun before he reaches safe territory. This antagonist, Naritsugu, is a little cartoonish in his villainy, but it would seem that Miike is good at harrowing, because some of the most memorable scenes were the brutal episodes of Naritsugu’s murderous and sadistic lifestyle.

After the initial political machinations set the scene, everything falls into the predictable pattern: a stately samurai is hired and gathers the best men for the job. They trek to the one place they can set up their ambush, picking up their last member on the way, and then the big payoff is a huge battle against a much larger retinue.
The film is uncompromising, exciting and extremely nice to look at. The cinematography is superb and the action scenes some of the best I’ve ever seen. What could have been a long and dull climactic fight actually elevated the whole film, which was after all little more than build-up to it. It was a mature and honest homage to a traditional film style.

But there were problems. 13 assassins may just have been a few too many. Seven samurai you can get to know well, but of the thirteen, not all were distinguished well enough. Most are straight out of a tradition older than Kurosawa but cemented by him: there’s the stately and determined leader, the somewhat unworthy younger relative who needs to leave behind his life of women and booze and prove himself, the timorous and inexperienced young one, the awesome grizzly master swordsman who says little but is peerless on the battlefield, the jovial round-faced spearsman and even the wildman with supposed ‘samurai stock’ (no fake certificate, though) who speaks vulgarly, rolling his Rs at all the ‘de gozaimasu’-s and fighting as capably as any.
The others just don’t get developed much. Four are just random elite students. We can’t distinguish much from them just using explosives. They discourse on what makes a samurai, on what life is worth and how honourable it is to give it in service, but most of the lines could come from any of the 12. The end of the film is also quite unsatisfactory: after the final battle, the rest of the fights just happen to have ended at just the right moment. We also have a rather annoying moment where it seems that the man speculated to be a tanuki may well be just that, and at the very least almost certainly has supernatural powers, unless someone was hallucinating. It just didn’t fit the film’s tone.