Directed by: Takashi Miike
Starring: Kôji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, and Yûsuke Iseya
Reviewer: Brett Gallman
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Reviewer's Rating: ***½ (Three and a half Stars)
As the sun sets on the age of the samurai, cruel lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki) terrorizes the country; as he is the shogun’s brother, he is nearly untouchable. However, a loyalist (Mikijiro Hira) secretly hires an honorable samurai (Kôji Yakusho) to gather a group of warriors for a suicide mission to assassinate Naritsugu. Miike’s epic is a masterwork in hack and slash precision, a lean piece of storytelling where the actors put the narrative on their back and carry the film to its show-stopping, action-packed climax. Before we get to that point, however, Miike manages to flesh out most of the title characters. They fit into the usual archetypes: the wise old master, the eager young buck, the enigmatic warrior, etc. While espousing the typical samurai virtues of honor, loyalty, and duty, they don’t come without a sly sense of humor that develops a warm sense of camaraderie that endears them to viewers.
Of course, anyone would seem pleasant compared to the film’s chief antagonist. Lord Naritsugu is beyond sadistic; he’s more akin to a sociopathic anarchist, the type of a guy who breathes in the fumes of chaos and vows to usher in an “age of war” while he’s in the middle of a fight for his life. His comeuppance is the hopeful endgame of the film’s second hour, which features a staggering, meticulously constructed sequence that pits 13 against 200. Miike’s camera constantly roves to capture several ingenious set pieces that pile up limbs and other severed extremities. It’s an almost exhausting sequence that finds its warriors caked in blood and dirt; however, in grand samurai tradition, they aren’t too exhausted to exchange some great dialogue. The righteous indignation that Yakusho emits during the climax is especially raw.
There’s an interesting trickster played by Yūsuke Iseya; the 13th assassin, he provides much of the playful comic relief and often comments on the proceedings. He feels like the meta-fictional voice of Miike, who effectively puts his own, post-ironic stamp on a time-worn genre.
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