A group of 13 samurai are sent to assassinate a brutal lord before he can grab any more power. Yet another well-titled movie.
The Good: For the most part, Takashi Miike tones down his usual cavalcade of brutality and that lets his ability as a director to shine through. The battle sequence is long yet amazing and well-shot, and avoids devolving into random guys hitting other random guys. Of course, he still puts in a few visceral scenes, but they are all the more effective when not surround by more of the same.
The Bad: Even though the story is well-told, it's fairly rote. Also, a number of the 13 aren't fleshed out very well, leading you to figure that they'll just be fodder when the time comes.
The Ugly: The variety of scenes used to paint a monstrous picture of our bad guy is about as ugly as it gets. Of course, by the end of it, you're totally on the side of the assassins, which is the point.
Points Pondered
-I knew this wasn't the average Miike film when a guy commits seppuku and you don't actually see him stick and knife in and watch his guts fall out.
-Setting this at the end of the samurai era definitely makes it more believable that a handful of well-trained men could pose a threat to a small army of amost-ceremonial samurai.
-The interplay between the leader of the 13 and the general of the enemy army was well done. It could have become one of a number of clichés, and avoiding them made the story stronger.
-Reading the description of the uncut version, they definitely made some wise choices for an international audience. Usually changes are made to dumb down films for a wider market, but here they eliminated a lot of silly scenes and weirdness that would have felt out of place.
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