13 Assassins is a total massacre.
’13 Assassins’ is “a stone-cold, limb-severin’, bull-burnin’ masterpiece’ says Ain’t It Cool News. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
The pick this week is from the far off nation of Japan. This is not because we’re secretly a collection of hipsters who think that foreign films are better, but because we’re pretty sure that no other country, not even the U.S., produces kickass samurai movies.
And this movie is fucking kickass man.
13 Assassins, directed by Takashi Miike, is a spiritual successor to Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai in its conceit. In the waning days of the feudal age of Japan, a samurai named Shinzaemon Shimada (Kôji Yakusho) collects twelve warriors to embark on a suicide mission to assassinate sociopathic Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki) who’s on his way to the shogun’s inner circle. Like Seven Samurai, the action is heavy and the characters are run down, but unlike the somber ending of the former, the ending of 13 Assassins leaves you punching the air out of sheer delight.
Of course, if you aren’t a fan of foreign films on the virtue that it isn’t in English, we would hope that you can put that aside for this movie. The action scenes in this movie will reward you for your patience.
So please, we implore you in light of recent events on a national level, you will not regret watching this movie.
