13 Assassins (2010)

My 27 movie A-Z film-a-thon: day 1.

I am watching 27 movies over the next two months that I otherwise would not have watched. All movies from my watchlist I was not planning on watching. I will post a little review for each one.

Starting with # (Day 1)

13 Assassins (Takashi Miike, 2010)

You could call this one of the best Dungeons and Dragons movies ever made. It is in no way based on the tabletop RPG, but it has that feel. Set at the end of an extended era of peace in Japan (likely the Edo period from 1603 to 1868), all samurai are trained for combat but no one has actually ever fought in a battle. A samurai master becomes disillusioned by a tyrannical lord and commits ritual suicide, seemingly feeling there was nothing else he could do to take the lord down. This does the trick. A bunch of samurai/Ronin are brought together to take down this supremely evil antagonist.

This isn’t an overly visceral movie. It’s not about spectacle or violence, though it is violent. It has some special effects that look incredibly cheap for 2010, but that doesn’t bother me. It is “telling a story” about samurai mindset and  ethos in a specific time and place. It is extremely well written, every scene is masterful and drips with character. I had to keep my phone as a study guide to understand everything going on, but it didn’t detract from the experience. I look forward to watching the movie again straight through after reading a list of all the characters. To look for little details I might have missed. If I saw this when I was 12 years old, it would have been the best movie ever.

9/10