Being a samurai is pretty awesome for a couple reasons. One, you get to carry around a kick-ass sword and it's not just for show either; you can slice off a finger or three if you wanted to. Second, you are often considered noble and honorable in a society that places a lot of value on these sort of things. You're a local celebrity, there are no professional athletes in your time period so you're the closest thing to being an idolized hero. And you probably get all the geisha you could ever want. But what is your place in a society that no longer needs you? Such was the state of Japan during the end of the Edo period in the mid 1800's. It was an age of relative peace where the power of the samurai had been greatly reduced. True samurai were becoming rarer and rarer and those that remained had no battles to fight, all they had left to cling on to was their sacred code.
Duty and honor are at the heart of Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins. How does one achieve honor? Is it taking your own life in political protest as someone does in the very beginning of the film? Is it taking your own life out of shame as a woman who is just raped and witness to her husband's murder? Is it fulfilling the Confucius ideal of laying your life on the line for your master? Or is it laying your life on the line for justice and the greater good? All are honorable in their own way, but what it ultimately boils down to is doing what you think is right and there is no greater gesture than self sacrifice.
13 assassins must band together to take down an evil and sadistic lord who might one day gain a higher position in the shogunate government. How evil is he? He kills and dismembers people for fun. He rapes a woman and butchers her husband in front of her, commenting on how hard it is to cut through a monkey's bones. He is arrogant and narcissistic, basically a grade-A douchebag. So obviously he needs to be taken out. The first two acts are devoted to assembling the team of assassins together and formulating their plan of attack, while the final act is 45 minutes of glorious action. Structurally it is very similar to Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai, which doesn't seem like a coincidence.
The lead samurai of the group, Shinzaemon, has been waiting all his life for the day he could die an honorable death, to lay it all on the line for something he truly believes in. Each member of his team has his own little backstory and the film does a good job in introducing the audience to the characters. Miike does the best he can so that when it finally comes down the final battle, we know who is who and that we actually care what happens to them. One issue that I had though, and through no fault of the movie, is keeping track of some of the guys since I'm not familiar with any of the actors and they all look the same. (As an Asian, I am allowed to say this about other Asians.) Not everybody is given equal backstory as some characters are clearly more important than others. And it doesn't help that the cast of heroes is almost double that of Seven Samurai. But regardless of whether or not you remember their names, you do recognize their heroism.
This isn't simply a one dimensional story of good versus evil, however. Though Lord Naritsugu is clearly evil and must go down, he is protected by his own samurai, Hanbei, who ends up being a sympathetic character. Henbei is a samurai in the most traditional sense, in that he is a faithful servant ready to die for his lord, no matter his personal feelings or thoughts. It is perhaps a misguided sense of honor, but only because his lord is so evil. All Henbei has in this world is that honor, without it he would cease to be a samurai. While admiring Shinzaemon, he scorns him as well for not understanding his duty to Naritsugu. While pitted against each other, both are actually fighting for the same thing, to preserve their way of life, the life of the samurai.
The 13 assassins lay out a careful plan to attack the evil lord in a classic against all odds fight, 13 of them versus over 200 bad guys. The battle is intense, bloody, and enthralling and unlike the similarly themed 300, 13 Assassins doesn't rely on cheap tricks or thrills, it is just down right gritty. The 45 plus minute action sequence is all worth it thanks to the first two acts that set it up, something many action movies fail to balance, but which 13 Assassins handles quite well.
Grade: A
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