This
is a monumental samurai film that's thought to be a dead genre that used to
realm supreme during Kurosawa's reign behind the camera. It has everything that
a good samurai film has, all the way down to their costumes, katana blades, and
mannerism.
One
of my favorite movies of all time is Seven
Samurai, and there are many aspects of 13
Assassins that are borrowed from Seven
Samurai. The two movie plays with the rules of the main characters being
terribly outnumbered and yet they must find an ambush like tactic to obtain the
upper hand. The movie even has the idea of having an incompetent loser as a part
of the team. Seven Samurai only had
six samurais. 13 Assassins only had
twelve assassins. I did like Toshio Mifune's character and purpose in
"Seven Samurai" because he actually did the most work and had a
passionate like drive. In this movie, the bumbling idiot is more of a
mysterious character who doesn't even uses a katana blade.
The
look of the movie is something I've never seen in any mainstream samurai movie
for a very long time. When we imagine samurais, we would have them wear those
giant armor and scary mask like helmet. In this movie, the costumes are
simplistic. The 13 samurais wear black, while Lord Naritsugu and his guards
wear white.
Like most of Takashi Miike movies, the villains are
overemphasized. In Ichi the Killer, we
have Kakihara, a sadistic yakuza enforcer. In Audition, we have Asami, a sadistic torturer who appears innocent.
In this movie, we have Lord Naritsugu. His performance is not so emphasized to
the point where the movie is solely about him, but we get to know so much of
him and his sinister nature as a ruler and as a human being.
The
first half of the movie contains a huge buildup and that's what I like. Action
scenes are only good if it means something. If the samurais are fighting just
for the sake of fighting, then the ending would've not been so interesting. The
first half of the movie plays a great big lead up to the big climactic ending.
We are introduced to Lord Naritsugu and find out that he's a wretched and vile
human being and should be fit for attaining political power. We are then
introduced to Shinzaemon and his plot to assassinate the evil lord. Through
this, he gathers eleven samurais for the job. We spend about an hour and
fifteen to know these characters and because of that, the big ending is epic.
The
huge battle scene was probably one of the best movie fight scene of this year
so far. It consists of thirteen samurais versus 200 hundred guards. The
thirteen samurais must allocate their resources in order to survive enough to
kill Lord Naritsugu. Through this, they used arrows, explosives, giant gates to
separate the guards, and rocks if they're really desperate. Although there was
some CGI placed in some scenes, the fight felt real due to the use of a real
location and the use of real sword fighting. There are certain stylized parts
in the battle, but the sword fight looked as if it wasn't planned out and felt
natural. The samurais don't do impressive feats that looks impressive. They're
basically trying to survive by cutting down as many guards as possible.
This
movie is a Takashi Miike movie and although I never did like his other movies,
Miike shows us how good of a filmmaker he is. He's notable for making gory
unwatchable movies; however, the gore and violence must play a role in the
story. In this movie, the Samurai holds up a parchment that reads "total
massacre." It's supposed to be bloody and gory and Miike does have his
moments of bloody pleasures. But the bottom line is, Miike finally serves the
tone correctly while satisfying his own directorial trademarks. I can't believe
I'm saying this, but I can safely say that there is one Takashi Miike movie
that I actually critically like.
13 Assassins was a pretty damn good
movie. It encompasses many principles of that which made Seven Samurai a great movie, as well as going with the idea of
facing enemies that outnumber them a billion to twelve. It's the first respectable
Takashi Miike film and it's an overall good samurai epic.
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