The theme of 'honour' is often central to samurai movies, but I can't think of another movie that has handled its complexities as well as 13 Assassins.
Directed by Takashi Miike (who I tend to associate with graphic and disturbing horror movies rather than chambara swordfighting flicks), this is the story of 12 samaurai and a woodsman, who acts as their guide, plotting the death of the Shogun's half-brother, the evil Lord Naritsuga (Gorô Inagaki).
Naritsuga isn't Darth Vader/comic book evil, but a full-on, conscience-free psychopath, whose violent appetites, arrogant ambition and total disregard for human life threaten to shatter mid-19th Century Japan's fragile peace.
Of course, because of his blood ties with the Shogun (he's also the son of the previous Shogun), he goes unchallenged, until the Shogun's advisor Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira) gets tacit approval from the Shogun to deal with the problem "off the record".
Doi recruits seasoned samurai Shinzaemon Shimada (Kôji Yakusho) for the difficult task - Shinzaemon's only chance is to ambush Naritsuga on the road back from the capitol to his family lands, when he's accompanied by around 70 soldiers.
In this time of peace, finding trained samurai up to such a task is hard work, but eventually Shinzaemon assembles a hit squad of a dozen and comes up with a plan to divert Naritsuga's caravan through a village which Shizaemon will have had fortified and turned into a "death trap".
While the plot is very straight forward, the story can get rather complex for a Western viewer as the opening, explanatory text flashes by fast enough to give you whiplash, and then the dialogue is quite heavy with a lot of names and places (much like Game Of Thrones in that sense) and much, if not all, of the motivation for the protagonists is driven by the concept of honour - they know it's a suicide mission, but it's the right thing to do to save their country (before Naritsuga can assume the high political office that has been offered to him by his half-brother).
On the other side of the coin, Naritsuga's chief samurai Hanbei (Masachika Ichimura) - an old frenemy of Shinzaemon - knows that his master is evil, but also sees his obligation as protecting his master with his life and not questioning orders.
The first hour-and-a-quarter of 13 Assassins sets the chess pieces in place, motivations and reasons are established, the assassination team is assembled (and some have a brief tussle with some henchmen of Naritsuga's clan), but all this building up to the stunning finale, a 45-minute running battle between the assassins and Naritsuga's army (which turns out to be far bigger than they first believed).
Now, I knew in advance of the much-heralded 45-minute battle scene and wondered if Miike could pull it off. And the simple answer is: yes. It's almost a mini-film within the film, never gets repetitive or boring, allows all the assassins their moment in the spotlight, is incredibly creative and bloody (without being unnecessarily gory) and wholly convincing. It shows how a small force of highly trained individuals with a strong leader and a solid plan can take on a much larger force and achieve some sense of victory.
There are, of course, some similarities between 13 Assassins and Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, but not to the detriment of either film.
