DVD review: 13 assassins

A group of samurai set out to kill a sadistic lord.

This is a fairly peculiar movie. The first part is all preparations and drama, the second part is entirely occupied by an extended battle scene.

The movie is very Japanese so it can be off putting to people not used to eastern cinema.

The first part is a throwback to those classics black and white samurai flicks that maybe you glimpsed late at night. It’s fairly interesting material although it doesn’t engage a lot a modern viewer, most probably alien to the web of traditions that directed those people lives.

This is a Japan set movie from Japan by a Japanese author, Takashi Miike, so don’t expect any explanatory aside, or too much comic asides by the way. These samurais are very serious people and they don’t smile a lot.

The second bit is an incredibly lengthy battle sequence, I wasn’t joking when I said it is practically the whole second half of the movie. It’s all very well set, crafted and choreographed.

Probably I’m a true believer but I had no problem with such a lengthy battle, I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. It’s strange but the very length of the battle lends gravitas to it. It means that it is not a secondary event, like those random shoot outs in action movies. Instead it becomes a life changing event, a true moment of life and death.

Miike, regarding the action sequences, is of the “blood and guts” school so expect an incredible amount of bloods with severed body parts flying around. It’s so bloody that I’ll advise against seeing it if you are in any way easily impressed.

Conclusion: A nice old school samurai epic, the first part can be boring but the battle sequence alone is worth the price of admission. Only for katana heads anyway, certainly not recommended to the general public.