Samurai elegance in action (2024)

Samurai elegance in action

What “13 Assassins” lacks in other action films is, a villain who transcends evil and rises above to the level of savage insanity. This savage and his private army face off against a group of samurais brought together to put an end to his terror. Their heroism against impossible odds is a last hurrah for the samurai code; the film is set in 1844, toward the end of the medieval Edo period, when true samurai warriors were growing rare.

Terrifically entertaining, this movie is an audacious big-budget epic directed with great visuals and sound by Takeshi Miike. The last 45 minutes are devoted to an inventive and ingenious battle scene but it doesn’t fall into that type of incomprehensible mayhem we often find in recent actioners. It’s a lesson to the queasy-cam auteurs because Miike choreographs the action so that it makes sense even better he takes two acts establishing characters. We know who these thirteen samurai are and why many behave as they do under threat of death. Kurosawa’s (even better) “Seven Samurai” can be compared with this screenplay and shot composition care.

It starts with stark, bloody simplicity. A man kneels in a courtyard, disemboweling himself as protest against Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki), the half-brother of the shogun. Naritsugu’s cruelty inspires such seppuku which we later see demonstrated in appalling detail. He amputates some victims; he kicks severed heads across rooms and does whatever else he wants including raping any woman that lives within his sphere of influence or beyond it really since women don’t matter much here. He is not some twisted cartoon but rather a coked up sissy; what makes him tick still remains anyone’s guess though.

To correct this evil in the land Doi goes first seeking out Shimada (Koji Yakusho) and finds him peacefully fishing atop a ladder in the sea but with his sword of course nearby. Shimada then seeks another dozen warriors to join him, and this process is familiar to us from countless other movies. Each of the recruits has his own personality and back story, some more elaborate than others, and of course there must be a little comic relief, although Koyata (Yusuke Iseya) grows more serious in the heat of battle.

The odds are impossible for these heroes; they only number 13 while Lord Naritsugu fields at least 200 against them. Miike does not spare us any whimsicality about thirteen good men outdoing two hundred bad ones like he did here; instead he has his samurai rig an entire village as a trap. It’s clear this is planned but when it comes to surprises, it would seem right if at all one had asked how exactly could the assassins have gotten enough time and resources together to set up such an intricate ambush. Reasonable no doubt still you do not pose queries like that when watching films where you have got to suspend your disbelief.

With traditional costumes, idealistic dialogue, sharp characterizations and a gloriously choreographed fight sequence that probably lasts at least forty minutes or so in one form or another, Miike elegantly brings forth its rich history in samurai films. I find movie fights boring since they are just motion without drama most times. However, “13 Assassins” features characters we know well enough already so that even during general melee there are structured vignettes. Hollywood action directors can study this film especially on how it focuses on story amidst violence.”

Film has a subtext. The last stand is made by the thirteen assassins for traditional samurai’s code. Besides, it is evident that Japan is gradually losing its identity to the modern world and the government led by shogunate is corrupt as well as characterized by nepotism and decadence. This reminded me about “Twilight Samurai” (2004) by Yamata in an indirect manner; a great movie set in 1868 about a samurai who works for his clan as an accountant, but who has to revert back to his traditional ways.

For most of “13 Assassins,” I was pretty sure that it uses CGI effects but could hardly make them out at all. That’s what special effects were always meant to do: fool the eye not mock at it. As far as movement can be concerned with reality this picture contains mostly acceptable ones. CGIs are often used as poor substitutes for live-action cartoons. This movie could be studied by those involved in making Friday-night action blockbusters because there are lessons to be drawn from such productions.

Watch Samurai elegance in action For Free On Gomovies.