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13 Assassins

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Director Takashki Miike's 13 Assassins continues in the tradition of a Samurai culture and its impact on Japanese society. Nearing the end of the Shogunate's rule over the people, the Samurai are still trapped in a battle between preserving their honor and turning a blind eye to the heinous actions of the third most powerful man in the country, Naritsugu. Naritsugu is a bloodthirsty ruler with no sense of honor or decency. He roams the country terrorizing those who will not retaliate. In connection with the soon to be formed 13 Assassins faction, Naritsugu murdered one of their sons and daughters (after raping the daughter and then stabbing the son from behind), de-limbed one of their women and cut her tongue out before raping her mercilessly, and he murdered entire families for sporting practice. This villain knows no boundaries, no justice, and acts like a savage serial murderer, only he is never questioned for that would mean certain death to the confronter. Gradually, there is enough popular dissent and enough honor left in the waning days of the samurai for a small but lethal fighting force to be assembled with one mission in mind: to kill Naritsugu before he becomes more powerful and brings massacres to all of Japan.

The leader of the 13 Assassins is Shinzaemon, a decorated samurai warrior with an ironclad sense of honor. He is willing to die in order to have punishment brought to the mass murderer. His recruits include Kuranaga (a samurai instructor), Hioki (a ronin assassin/mercenary for hire), Sahara (an elder ronin), Shinroukuru (Shinzaemon's brave nephew searching for a meaning for his life), Otaki (the comedian of the bunch), Ishuzaka (another derring-do samurai), Horri and Higuchi (skilled demolitionists), Koyata (a hunter they meet along the way with extensive knowledge of the terrain), Ogura (he is not accustomed to mortal combat), Mitsuhashi (from Kuranga's dojo) and Hirayama (a trainee of Shinzaemon). Together they practice guerilla warfare and learn to fight by any means at their disposal. They accept that confronting a superior force will be a virtual suicide mission, but that sense of ritualistic self-murder was already etched in their psyches as the honorable way of life.

The long-awaited final confrontation occurs in a small town along Naritsugu's journey. The Assassins have assembled booby-traps, prepared timed explosions, and built swinging portals designed to close and divide the enemy's forces. Their sense of guerilla combat is brilliant. When the fighting begins all hell breaks loose. The warring is chaotic. When the Assassins' arrows run out, after their explosives have been detonated, and their parlor tricks are spent, Naritsugu remains alive and his forces are still numerically superior. For hours the Assassins fight hundreds of men in hand-to-hand combat. Whenever an Assassin seems outnumbered or near death one of his allies rescues him. Their incredible stand lasts for only so long as their energy and munitions are eventually exhausted and they are overwhelmed in a war of attrition. When everyone is dead, including Hanbei (Naritsugu's foolish samurai ally), Shinzaemon accepts death in order to kill the psychopath Naritsugu. On his deathbed, the sociopath proclaims that the day's events were the most exciting he had ever encountered. His mind was clearly warped and his thirst for blood beyond any normal man's reckoning.

13 Assassins is an award winning film, and rightfully so. It is not for the impatient as the action take a long time to develop. The Japanese scrolls are beautiful and authentic. The wardrobe for each warrior is time-sensitive. Nothing is lost in the glorious stagecraft. The fighting is nothing short of miraculous. The artists must have been exhausted but their stunts look genuine. The contrast of light versus darkness is what propels the viewer forward into begging for redemption. This is a true Japanese war epic, and what better way to recreate important history than by harkening back to the nation's samurai days.