Sunday, July 3, 2011

13 Assassins (十三人の刺客) Director's Cut Review

Not Rated (International Version Rated R for Sequences of Bloody Violence, some Disturbing Images and Brief Nudity)

Running Time: 2 Hours & 21 Minutes

Cast:
Kôji Yakusho-Shinzaemon Shimada
Hiroki Matsukata-Saheita Kuranaga
Takayuki Yamada-Shinrokurō Shimada
Kazuki Namioka-Rihei Ishiduka
Tsuyoshi Ihara-Kujūrō Hirayama
Ikki Sawamura-Gunjirō Mitsuhashi
Seiji Rokkaku-Mosuke Ōtake
Sōsuke Takaoka-Yasokichi Hioki
Yūma Ishigaki-Gennai Higuchi
Kōen Kondō-Yahachi Horii
Arata Furuta-Heizō Sahara
Masataka Kubota-Shōujirō Ogura
Yūsuke Iseya-Koyata Kiga
Gorô Inagaki-Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira
Masachika Ichimura-Hanbei Kitou
Mikijiro Hira-Sir Doi
Kazue Fukiishi-Tsuya/Upashi
Koshiro Matsumoto-Yukie Makino
Mitsuki Tanimura-Chise Makino
Takumi Saito-Uneme Makino
Masaaki Uchino-Zusho Mamiya

Directed by Takashi Miike

Note: In Japanese with English subtitles.

You don't mess with these samurai.
Japanese director Takashi Miike has quite an extensive filmography and has helmed over seventy theatrical features, television shows, and direct-to-video offerings, all encompassing a wide variety of genres ranging from family-friendly to ultraviolent fare. ’ My experience with Miike’s work is limited but I am familiar with some of his more controversial films that push the boundaries of extreme cinema such as “Audition,” “Ichi the Killer,” and “Visitor Q,” infamous for its taboo themes of incest, necrophilia, and 'erotic lactation.' As such, Miike is an acquired taste but his latest flick, “13 Assassins,” a remake of Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 black-and-white film “The Thirteen Assassins,” is more conventional and lacks the stylistic flair you would associate with the prolific director. The samurai film died out due to overexposure but “13 Assassins” brings the genre back to the forefront with bloody panache. With its pitch-perfect pacing, larger-than-life characters and a lengthy battle scene that defies all description, Miike proves to Hollywood that all you need is creativity and the necessary drive to create a memorable action film, not millions of dollars of meaningless CG effects. 

“13 Assassins” takes place during the twilight years of the Edo period in Japan. On March 5, 1844, Akashi Clan House Elder Zusho Mamiya (Masaaki Uchino) commits painful and brutal seppuku in protest of the shogun’s younger half-brother, Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira (Gorô Inagaki). As no one dares to disrespect the shogun’s authority, Naritsugu is free to commit his sadistic acts of rape and torture without any fear of retribution. A high ranking official, Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira), realizes that Naritsugu would only bring disaster if he becomes shogun and secretly enlists the aid of a semi-retired samurai named Shinzaemon Shimada (Kôji Yakusho) to assassinate him. Shinzaemon gathers eleven other samurai to accompany him on his mission, including his nephew, Shinrokurō (Takayuki Yamada). They plan to ambush Naritsugu on his long journey home from Edo by forcing him and his armed escort to travel through a small village called Ochiai. Before the group departs, Shinzaemon is confronted by his former sparring partner Hanbei Kitou (Masachika Ichimura), who now serves Naritsugu as his personal samurai bodyguard. Each tries in vain to dissuade the other from their task, with Hanbei promising that they will fight soon as he leaves. Shinzaemon tasks fellow samurai Gunjirō Mitsuhashi (Ikki Sawamura) with buying out the mayor of Ochiai so that they are free to fortify the town with numerous hidden traps. Along the way, the samurai meet a hunter in the mountains named Koyata Kiga (Yûsuke Iseya), who claims to be of samurai lineage. As he is familiar with the surrounding area, Shinzaemon decides to adopt him as the thirteenth assassin. Once the preparations at Ochiai are complete, the samurai take up positions and wait for Naritsugu and his armed escort to arrive but realize to their horror that they are not facing the 70 men they expected but 200. Despite all the odds stacked heavily against them, Shinzaemon is unfazed and is determined to complete the mission and kill Naritsugu, even if it claims his and the lives of his fellow samurai in the process. 

“13 Assassins” offers no real surprises, especially if you’ve seen similar films such as Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential 1954 film, “Seven Samurai,” but its story of a dying breed of warriors making their literal and symbolic last stand is simple and effective, and sometimes that’s all you need in a good story. Understanding the subtext requires a passing familiarity with Japanese history, although if you’re not, it won’t hinder your enjoyment of the film. During the Edo period (which lasted from 1603 to 1868), the peace brought about by the rule of the shoguns of the Tokugawa family led to the samurai gradually losing their military function, and they served as bureaucrats and administrators instead. The paired blades of a katana and a wakizashi were more of a symbolic emblem of the authority of a daimyo, a feudal lord. In the film, Shinzaemon meets a former sex slave whose limbs and tongue were chopped off by Naritsugu. When asked about what happened to her family, she grips a brush in her mouth and with tears of blood running in her eyes, she writes ‘TOTAL MASSACRE.’ It’s an intense and unsettling scene, certainly not for the faint of heart but it solidifies in a matter-of-fact manner just how psychopathic Naritsugu is. Shinzaemon sympathizes but reacts by laughing aloud because he sees this as an opportunity to finally die gloriously in battle. His hands even tremble with excitement. The peace of the Edo period has left the samurai restless and they find their code of honor (Bushidō) is put to the test with a corrupt and decadent shogunate, a fate which befalls all empires. When Shinzaemon and his twelve samurai confront Naritsugu, they are not just doing the right thing but also making a final stand to protect their way of life. The epilogue reveals that the Meiji Restoration led to the shogunate system being abolished and the increased marginalization of the samurai in favor of a more modern military to compete with the West. As they have become a relic of the past, this battle becomes the samurai’s last hurrah, their last chance to go out in a blaze of glory. 

The first half of “13 Assassins” has Shinzaemon receiving his mission and gathering the various samurai to aid him. Although character development is minimal, Miike allows for some reflection when the samurai remark on how wasteful their lives have been. The samurai are not meant to disobey their masters and are required to give their lives to protect them, but when the lords they serve are people like Naritsugu, than what is the point of being a samurai? There’s also plenty of comic relief and subtle supernatural leanings, stemming from the character of Koyata Kiga. This is left ambiguous to the viewer but there are hints that he is some sort of immortal spirit, not necessarily evil but mischievous. The second half is comprised of one big battle and it lasts an epic forty minutes. Numerous booby traps are unleashed to separate Naritsugu’s armed escort with Shinzaemon’s samurai hacking and slashing like no tomorrow. A small group of Naritsugu’s men come upon a courtyard with numerous katana haphazardly stuck to the ground. A samurai leaps to face them and after killing one man, he simply just grabs a random sword to kill another. It is simply…awesome. Reveling in its brutal realism, there’s a fluidity to how the scene is shot and not once did I have a hard time following what was going on. The camera is steady with plenty of wide views whereas Hollywood is obsessed with shaky cam and quick editing, producing incomprehensible action scenes. Amidst all the blood being shed, we actually care about what is happening. These people have devoted their whole lives to being samurai and damn it all to hell if they want to die fighting in something worth believing in! Most impressive is that Miike accomplishes all this without the aid of CG effects that many Hollywood films slavishly depend on. 

“13 Assassins” has a large cast and while it cannot afford to give everyone equal focus, each of the samurai serving Shinzaemon is at least given a unique enough voice to stand out from the crowd. Kôji Yakusho is undeniably the main star of the show and he is excellent, the calm exterior when he is fishing contrasting with the fiery determination he displays to complete his mission. This is a man you do not want to mess with, especially when he can decapitate you with a precise stroke with his katana. When he stares down at Naritsugu’s army before him, he takes out the parchment with ‘TOTAL MASSACRE’ written and screams to his men, ‘Kill! Kill them all!’ Takayuki Yamada plays Shinzaemon’s nephew, Shinrokurō, a samurai who has lost his way but joins his uncle in, as he describes it, a last gamble to redeem himself before their way of life is extinguished. Masachika Ichimura is Hanbei Kitou, a samurai so devoted to protecting his lord that he knowingly turns a blind eye to the kind of monster Naritsugu really is. The Bushidō code he lives by has become twisted where it is less about doing the honorable thing and more about following orders. As Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira, Gorô Inagaki emanates a casual air of menace as an unrepentant villain. He never displays any outward glee at the violence he inflicts and in fact, looks bored. To him, this is routine and Naritsugu believes that it is his right to treat people this way, feeling it serves as a reminder to the peasants who the real ‘master’ is. The film really hammers home that he is evil and it makes his demise that much more satisfying. Finally there’s Yûsuke Iseya as Koyata Kiga, a wild mountain man with an insatiable sexual appetite who may or may not be immortal. Most of the film’s comedy comes from Iseya and at one point, he’s repeatedly hit over the head with a heavy branch by two samurai but he neither falls nor feels the pain, simply turning to the man who hit him and asking, ‘What?!’ Another has him wearing out all the prostitutes at the brothel in Ochiai and is one of the scenes deleted from the international version. 

Released on September 25, 2010 in Japan with a limited release in the U.S. on April 29, 2011, “13 Assassins” has received critical acclaim with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics hailed the remake as an ‘action spectacle executed with killer, almost dizzying panache.’ However, approximately fifteen minutes was cut from the original version for its international release. I’m not entirely sure why these scenes were deleted but I’ll venture a guess that it had something to do with the MPAA’s hypocritical censorship requirements. The international version will be available on Blu-Ray and DVD on July 5th but will include all the cut content as deleted scenes. The director’s cut is currently playing for the first time in the U.S. as part of the New York Asian Film Festival 2011 at Lincoln Center in New York City, which is celebrating its tenth year. There’s only one screening which was a sold out show. Takayuki Yamada made a special guest appearance so if you missed him, you’re out of luck. The film has grossed $17 million worldwide which isn’t bad considering the production budget was only an estimated $6 million. Miike does not deviate from the genre conventions set forth in a samurai film but he polishes them to maximum effect with “13 Assassins,” delivering a bloody, visceral battle scene with a story told in a concise manner without any needless exposition. “13 Assassins” is quite simply, one heck of a bloody good time.

Final Rating: 5 out of 5

“For the Shogun, for the people, for the many who died untimely deaths, for Uneme Makino and his wife, for his father Yukie Makino, and for my men scattering Ochiai. For that innocent, nameless young girl with severed arms and legs...I SHALL TAKE YOUR LIFE!”