Jûsan-nin no shikaku

Title: Jûsan-nin no shikaku (13 Assassins) 

Director: Takashi Miike

Writer: Kaneo Ikegami, Daisuke Tengan 

Cast: Kôji Yakusho (Shinzaemon Shimada), Takayuki Yamada (Shinrouko), Yûsuke Iseya (Koyata)

Genre: History, War, Action 

Special Notes: Throughout history, the assassins have a bad name; prepare yourself, this is about to change 

Tyranny brings forth the assassin in the samurai and the nobility of death. Takashi Miike revolves around this idea in the remake of the classic movie with the same name. You don’t know what to expect from a movie whose opening scene is a seppuku ritual. What appears to be just an action movie induces a permanent discomfort state for the viewer with some disturbing scenes and an action that never seems to come. 

The intellectual struggle of Shinzaemon to take action against the masochistic Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira writes the first part.  At first glance, we see the samurai and their acquiescence futile as they blindly serve their master and nothing more while the people suffer. The massacres, the tortures, the bizarre fetishes of the young lord are proof of his cruelness but the one thing that solves Shinzaemon’s struggle comes from an unwitnessed act, a tortured woman (her limbs and tongue are cut out) is asked to tell what happened to her family and she paints her story on paper and sums it up into two words: “total massacre”. This powerful scene is the excuse needed to make the decision that would end Naritsugu’s life. 

The group formed for this suicide mission has 13 assassins (there are some resemblances with Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”). Even if they start as a team of 12, they meet Kiga when they are lost in the woods and they become 13. Kiga is the fantastic character, the one we don’t know much about; the only information we have about him is that he hunts from mountain to mountain and that he was abandoned for laying his hands on Upashi, his boss’s wife.   

The last part of the movie is the concretization of Shinzaemon’s plan and the sacrifice they make to fulfill their quest is presented as a bloodbath. This scene that lasts an hour will haunt the viewer for some time because of its violence and innovations.

A movie that shows us that violence is abolished by violence and that there is justice in death, “13 Assassins” is a nice surprise for a moviegoer.   

     

“Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira: Hanbei? 

Hanbei Kitou: Huh? 

Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira: You think the age of war was like this? 

Hanbei Kitou: Perhaps 

Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira: It's magnificent. With death comes gratitude for life. If a man has lived in vain, then how trivial his life is. Oh, Hanbei. Something wonderful has come to my mind. 

Hanbei Kitou: Huh? 

Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira: Once I'm on the Shogun's council, let's bring the age of war. “

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