13 Assassins

[GeneChing]

What is it with all the films having Assassin in the title lately? :rolleyes:


Japanese cult director in Venice with samurai film (AP) (http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/japanese-cult-director-venice-with-samurai-film-ap)
Source: AP Thu Sep 09, 2010, 3:18 pm EDT

VENICE, Italy - Japanese cult director Takashi Miike says he remade the 1963 classic "Thirteen Assassins" to help Japan's younger generation learn about the past.

The film is set about 150 years ago, toward the end of the samurai period. An esteemed samurai, Shinzaemon Shimada, played by Japanese superstar Koji Yakusho — best known to international audiences for his roles in "Babel" and "Memoirs of a Geisha" — calls on 12 other elite warriors to end the sadistic rule of Lord Naritsugu.

"I wanted the audience to realize that this story is not taking place in the remote past, but rather in a recent past when our grand-grand parents lived," the director told a news conference Thursday ahead of the film's premiere in competition for the Golden Lion. "It is our story, the story of our everyday life. In Japan, contemporary history is something children do not know very well."

The movie is a remake of Eiichi Kudo's black-and-white classic of the samurai genre.

Stylish and intricately choreographed, the story line presents the noble ideals often associated with samurai, for example, when early in the film Shimada says the greatest honor he could achieve as a samurai would be to die a "noble death."

"Fate smiles on me," he says when the opportunity to face off against Lord Naritsugu comes his way.

The film also relies on Miike's trademark use of violence. He also gives each samurai a distinctive personality, deepening interest in the characters.

The film comes to Venice competition with a strong production pedigree behind it. Jeremy Thomas, the project's executive producer who met Miike in Venice a few years ago, worked on Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 Oscar-winning film "The Last Emperor."

The film's other executive producer, Toshiaki Nakazawa, was behind the film "Departures," which won the best foreign film Oscar.

Miike was last in Venice with the 2007 film "Sukiyaki Western Django," in which actor and director Quentin Tarantino had a cameo.

Tarantino, a big fan of Miike's films, is president of this year's jury, which will decide the winner of the Golden Lion on Sept. 11.


Thirteen Assassins (2010) trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ILO2RWhEw)

[GeneChing]

forty-five minute battle sequence?! From Miike (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53754)?!? Holy cats! I have to see this!

Magnet Releasing Takes Takeshi Miike’s 13 ASSASSINS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Magnet Releasing Takes US Rights to Takeshi Miike’s 13 ASSASSINS from HanWay Films

New York – September 22, 2010 - The Wagner/Cuban Company's Magnet Releasing, genre arm of Magnolia Pictures announced today that it has acquired US rights to Takashi Miike’s samurai masterpiece, 13 ASSASSINS. 13 ASSASSINS, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, recently had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and has just been named as the Closing Night film at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin. A gorgeously realized, bravura samurai action film in the tradition of Seven Samurai, 13 ASSASSINS is being hailed as one of the best films of Miike’s prolific career.

Set in 1844 Japan, and based on a 1963 film of the same name, 13 ASSASSINS stars Koji Yakusho (Tokyo Sonata and Babel), and brings together the cream of Japan’s acting talent. Yakusho plays a brave samurai who assembles an elite team of thirteen killers to assassinate the brother of the Shogun, a sadistic and well protected young lord who’s above the law, raping and killing innocents with impunity. The film culminates in a mind-blowing, forty-five minute battle sequence that rivals anything seen before in the genre.

The US deal was negotiated by Magnet SVP Tom Quinn and Hanway Films CEO Tim Haslam. 13 ASSASSINS will be released theatrically by Magnet in the first quarter of 2011.

“Miike returns with a vengeance in this mother-of-all Samurai films,” said Tom Quinn, Magnet SVP. “We could not be more honored to welcome one of the world’s greatest genre masters and this instant classic into the Magnet family.”

HanWay sold over 20 territories in Toronto including Canada (Alliance), Australia/NZ (Icon), and Italy (BIM). A deal for the UK will be announced shortly.

13 ASSASSINS will soon screen at the upcoming London Film Festival. It was executive-produced by RPC’s Jeremy Thomas, who has long held a reputation for breaking Asian titles into the international market, most notably Bernardo Bertolucci's nine-time Oscar winner The Last Emperor, Nagisa Ôshima's Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence and Takeshi Kitano's Brother. Thomas partnered with Sedic International head Toshiaki Nakazawa (producer of the Oscar-winning Departures and Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django), and TV Asahi’s Takashi Hirajo. Toho Co., Ltd will release the film in Japan on September 25th.

About Magnet Releasing

Magnet is the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures, specializing in films from the vanguard of horror, action, comedy and Asian cinema, and is home to such films as Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, Neil Marshall’s sword and sandals bloodbath Centurion, John Woo’s historical epic Red Cliff, Ti West’s terrifying The House of the Devil, Tony Jaa’s Ong Bak trilogy, Nicholas Winding Refn’s Bronson, the Spanish horror film [Rec]2, and George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead. Coming soon is Gareth Edwards’ highly anticipated sci-fi masterpiece Monsters, coming to theaters in October, Alex de la Iglesia’s The Last Circus, KIM Jeewoon’s brutal I Saw the Devil, and Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber, featuring a killer tire on a murder spree. Magnolia Pictures is the theatrical and home entertainment distribution arm of the Wagner/Cuban Companies, a vertically integrated group of media properties co-owned by Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban that also include the Landmark Theatres chain, the production company 2929 Productions, and high-definition cable network HDNet.

About HanWay Films

HanWay Films' current slate includes David Cronenberg's upcoming "A Dangerous Method" starring Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender and Vincent Cassel, Andrea Arnold's "Wuthering Heights", Steve McQueen’s “Shame” starring Michael Fassbender, and Toronto Official Selection films "Essential Killing" by Jerzy Skolimowski (winner of the Special Jury Prize and Best Actor at Venice), "Made In Dagenham" by Nigel Cole starring Sally Hawkins, "Super" starring Rainn Wilson, Ellen Paige and Liv Tyler, and the animated feature "Chico & Rita" by director Fernando Trueba and the artist Mariscal.

[doug maverick]

forty-five minute battle sequence?! From Miike (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53754)?!? Holy cats! I have to see this!

agreed, this has become a must see now...

[GeneChing]

Not an impressive review, but I still want to see it.

13 Assassins -- Film Review (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/13-assassins-film-review-1004113537.story)
By Deborah Young, September 08, 2010 08:50 ET
Bottom Line: Surprisingly few surprises in this classic samurai costumer from Japan's dark iconoclast Takeshi Miike.

Takeshi Miike is one of the most prolific filmmakers in the world, chalking up more than 80 films in the past 10 years. Most are made quickly, but in "13 Assassins," a classic samurai genre film, it is clear that time and care were taken to achieve those high production values. The director's scream-and-scream-again horror films, like the unforgettable "Audition," and his goofy superhero send-ups (Venice is also hosting two of his "Zebraman" titles) would suggest he would go to work gleefully deconstructing the samurai canon. But once again, Miike surprises his audience.

Strangely enough, he opts to follow the genre's social code and dramaturgy almost slavishly, and the result is a beautifully lensed but rather unremarkable Japanese period piece. Its main market will be drawn from the male demographic of its native land, where the cast is all-star. Apart from viewers with a special interest in swords clashing in tedious, interminable battle, this looks like a hard sell.

The Japanese release on Sept. 25 will contain about 20 additional minutes of a scene set in a brothel, just before the climactic fight.

The time is 1844, and peace reigns in feudal Japan. But it is threatened by a young Lord's bloody rise to power and his sadistic raping and killing. The story pits samurai who are loyal to the Shogun's evil brother, Naritsugu (played by rocker Goro Inagaki with dandyish cruelty), as their code demands, against those who feel he's a menace to society and has to be taken out.

The man is a monster, and to show this Miike unleashes his dark imagination in two early set pieces. The shocker is the scene in which a naked girl who is brought before the great samurai Shinzaemon (renowned actor Koji Yakusho); Naritsugu has had her arms and legs cut off because her father was "a peasant leader." Later, miffed at another nobleman who has contemptuously committed hara-kiri, he has his wife and children tied up and shoots arrows into them.

His righteous anger roused, Shinzaemon assembles a band of loyal samurai who pledge to assassinate the evil lord during his annual trip home. Everyone knows it's a suicide mission because Naritsugu is heavily guarded and protected by the clever and brave Hanbei (Masachika Ichimura). Nevertheless, they make a plan to attack his convoy and set off for the mountains, where an intrepid local lad (played for laughs by the winning Yusuke Iseya) is allowed to join their number as the 13th fighter.

They prepare a small town in the mountains with elaborate mechanical booby traps and wait for Lord Naritsugu's 200-strong entourage to pass by. These traps are sprung during the battle that takes up the last half of the film. Even when wooden buildings explode and flaming oxen run through the streets, however, the effects are underwhelming.

Though it takes some time to sort out the large cast, the leads, all fine actors, eventually come into focus. As the good and bad samurai, Yakusho and Ichimura have the gravitas to take their roles seriously and perform a decisive one-on-one sword fight straight. The same goes for two brooding younger avengers, Shinzaemon's apprentice (Tsuyoshi Ihara) and nephew (Takayuki Yamada). Iseya, playing the mountain boy who thinks samurai are boring, adds the sole note of humor and wit.

Venue: Venice Film Festival (In Competition)
Production companies: TV Asahi Corp., Toho Co., Dentsu, Sedic International, Sedic Deux, Rakueisha Co.
Cast: Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya, Goro Inagaki, Masachika Ichimura, Mikijiro Hira, Hiroki Matsukata, Ikki Sawamura, Arata Furuta, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Masataka Kubota,Sousuke Takaoka
Director: Takeshi Miike
Screenwriter: Daisuke Tengan
Executive producers: Toshiaski Nakazawa, Jeremy Thomas, Takashi Hirajo
Producers: Michihiko Umezawa, Minami Ichikawa, Toichiro Shiraishi, Takahiro ohno, Hirotsugu Yoshida, Shigeji Maeda
Director of photography: Nobuyasu Kita
Production designer: Yuji Hayashida
Music: Koji Endo
Costumes: Kazuhiro Sawataishi
Editor: Kenji Yama****a
Sales agent: HanWay Films, Toho Co.
Running time: 126 minutes

[GeneChing]

Takashi Miike's 13 ASSASSINS Official Poster Now Available!

Winner Of Three Japan Academy Prize Awards!

***Venice Film Festival***
*** The Toronto International Film Festival ***
***Fantastic Fest***
*** SXSW Film Festival***

Synopsis:
In 13 ASSASSINS, cult director Takashi Miike delivers a bravado period action film set at the end of Japan's feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future.

13 ASSASSINS was directed and edited by Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer), from a script by Daisuke Tengan. It stars Kôji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya, and Goro Inagaki.

13 ASSASSINS premiere at the South By Southwest Film Festival Sunday, March 13; in select theaters April 29th.

Official website: http://www.13assassins.com
Friend us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/13assassins

Looking forward to the American release.

[Jimbo]

I have got to see this. Even if that reviewer didn't seem impressed, it doesn't matter.

[Lucas]

I have got to see this. Even if that reviewer didn't seem impressed, it doesn't matter.

same...they probably just suck at reviewing bad ass movies anyway :D

love me some Miike!

[GeneChing]

Check out an exclusive featurette for 13 ASSASSINS (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=953). 13 ASSASSINS is available on March 25 on iTunes, Video On Demand, Amazon.com, VUDU, Xbox Marketplace and the Playstation Network. In theaters April 29.

[Lucas]

hell ya ill be watching that on marketplace fo sho! thanks for the heads up bro

HECKA!

[Hebrew Hammer]

This movie was totally effin awesome...an epic, I'm going to buy it. Think Magnificent 7 or the 7 Samurai, modernized, badass, and gruesome...wow. Quentin Terrintino would love this.

Here's a link if you want to see it online:

http://www1.zmovie.tv/movies/view/13-assassins-2010

[Lucas]

wow...just wow. couldnt agree more with that last post, modern classic no doubt. this is a must see if you have balls. rented this on zune through xbox live for 12 bucks, so if you have one do it now while its still available. forgot all about wanting to rent this till your post hebrew hammer so thanks lol

[Hebrew Hammer]

You are welcome, my son...I'm here to protect and to serve.

[Lucas]

lol sweet. i had to go back and rewatch the sword in the bamboo stalks scene with that ronin and his student..omg.

[Hebrew Hammer]

I'm going to have to watch that sequence again too, he was great, I was wondering why all those swords were planted in the ground.

[Lucas]

ya me too. it reminded me alot of that jet li scene, forget what film, where he is in that alley way with a bunch of katanas in his belt. except this was waaaay better than jet li.

the way the two masters cut people down was bad ass too

[Lucas]

I would like to point out that the reviewer above, deborah young, i do not quite agree with. Simply the fact that she entirely missed the bushido tale in this film tells me she maybe should not have even reviewed it :p

*a few spoilers*

this is not really a review, i would just like to clarify some of what i see as inaccuracies in the reviewers write up. because i believe this film is very top notch...i suppose it would depend on how interested and knowledgable you are of feudal japan and the samurai society. i dont really want to be sexist but i will, i think many women completely miss or do not understand bushido.

first off, there are no 'bad' samurai, only the lord, the shogunates half brother. the bushido tale in this film actually comes from the point of hanbie, the main antagonist samurai, he dies to uphold his samurai status and the code of bushido. he knows who he is protecting deserves to die, yet that is not the way of the samurai. he protects his lord with his life, just like he should. he holds to the code of bushido until the end. he is not a bad guy though. simply a samurai.

the film exhibits the end of bushido, the downfall of the samurai caste, the fall of the tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the meiji era. these events do not actually happen in the film, but the events in the films story are developed to indirectly be a partial cause of this, which is summarized at the end.

additionally. its not so much elaborate death traps, but troop division. there are a couple of explosions, yet the main point is to show that the 200 troops are divided and that is how the 13 samurai are able to hold their ground and in the end, accomplish their goal. its a constant running battle. the 13 samurai initially think they will be only fighting 70 men. had that been the case, it would have been a 'total massacre'.

[Brule]

Lucas,

I think the Jet Li movie you're talking about is Fong Sai Yuk #2. I thought that scene was sweet.

[Lucas]

Lucas,

I think the Jet Li movie you're talking about is Fong Sai Yuk #2. I thought that scene was sweet.

yes i believe you are right! thanks :D

[curenado]

I was not going to, but will check it out.

The thing about the Samauri is pretty cool and I agree about the recent history aspect that most people don't realize - like the boxer rebellion.

Some people thought it was criminal but plenty of people saw that one as China's holy men trying to save her and the suppression of them as the end of China's glory age - I don't know everything about it but just figure if monks come out for you there must be a pretty good reason...

[GeneChing]

13 ASSASSINS (http://fest11.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=91)
Screenings: Sun, May 1 8:30 / Castro
Jûsan-nin no shikaku
World Cinema
Japan, 2010, 126 min

CREDITS
dir Takashi Miike

prod Minami Ichikawa, Toichiro Shiraishi, Michihiko Umezawa, Takahiro Ohno, Hirotsugu Yoshida, Masaaki Ujo

scr Daisuke Tengan

cam Nobuyasu Kita

editor Kenji Yama****a

mus Koji Endo

cast Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya, Goro Inagaki, Masachika Ichimura,

source Magnolia Pictures, 2222 South Barrington Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90064. EMAIL: aayers@magpictures.com.

web http://www.magpictures.com

13 Assassins

Cult filmmaker Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, SFIFF 2002; Izo, SFIFF 2005) delivers possibly his most surprising film of all, a nearly straightforward homage to the glory days of Japanese swordplay movies. A remake of a little known (at least in the West) 1963 film by Eiichi Kudo, 13 Assassins begins in 1844, when the noble samurai Sinzaemon Shimada (Koji Yakusho, Charisma, SFIFF 2000; Babel 2006) is chosen to assassinate the brutal and extremely well-protected Lord Naritsugu (a giddily sadistic Goro Inagaki). A job this daunting needs more than a few good men; Shimada slowly recruits a dirty dozen of them, some more willing than others to kill and, most likely, die. All roads, of course, lead to a final showdown: our 13 assassins versus literally hundreds of villains in a remarkable, roughly 45-minute battle scene filled with life, death and dynamite—a sequence that finds Miike holding his own against any Kurosawa, Inagaki or Leone set piece. While inserting his dry humor and a few of his trademark over-the-top moments, Miike otherwise refuses any snide genre send-ups or satire here, instead focusing on the simple pleasures of a well-crafted genre film. “13 Assassins is a samurai terror film showing the flowers of life and death,” he notes. “Simple, radical, beautiful.”

Special support for this program generously provided by Penelope Wong and Tim Kochis.
I'm so trying to make this. It all depends on if my wife works that night.

[Lucas]

"a sequence that finds Miike holding his own against any Kurosawa, Inagaki or Leone set piece"

truly.

[Zenshiite]

HDNet Movies is playing it tomorrow night at 8 pm ET.

[GeneChing]

I am so bummed. :(

[Hebrew Hammer]

Isn't that usually grounds for celebration?

[GeneChing]

I have a kid and I can't justify a sitter for this. I was excited about seeing 13 Assassins in a real live movie theater on a big screen (with some old fencing buddies even) but not this time. No worries. The film will come to me. They always do...

[MasterKiller]

I have a kid and I can't justify a sitter for this. I was excited about seeing 13 Assassins in a real live movie theater on a big screen (with some old fencing buddies even) but not this time. No worries. The film will come to me. They always do...

That's what Grandmas are for!

[GeneChing]

And it's a school night. To add insult to injury, my wife leaves for a week working at a zen center the following Monday, so I'll be a single parent for a week.

No worries. I'll see this eventually. A review DVD is sure to cross my desk in due time.

[GeneChing]

Indie Focus: Takashi Miike picks up a genre's sword for '13 Assassins' (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-indie-focus-20110424,0,6106381.story)
The filmmaker behind 'Audition' and 'Ichi the Killer' charges into the samurai movie tradition.
By Mark Olsen, Special to the Los Angeles Times
April 24, 2011

In the waning days of Japan's feudal era, an army marches into a village and is ambushed by a small band of samurai determined to topple the merciless lord leading the much larger force. As "13 Assassins" moves toward its dazzling, dizzyingly over-the-top climactic battle sequence, it gains a momentum of startling inevitability, as if these events simply must come to pass. The lengthy frenzy of blood, mud, arrows, swordplay and honor righteously defended that ensues is furious, intense and unrelenting.

Takashi Miike's first take on Japan's venerable samurai genre, "13 Assassins" is a remake of Eiichi Kudo's 1963 movie of the same name and adheres with an unexpected faithfulness to the story and structure of the original.

Miike, 50, an outlandishly prolific filmmaker credited with more than 80 films since the early 1990s, has become a fixture of the international festival circuit and is known to American audiences for the flamboyant visual style and subversive humor of such genre-hopping films as 1999's "Audition," 2001's "Ichi the Killer" and 2007's "Sukiyaki Western Django."

In "13 Assassins," which opens Friday in Los Angeles and is already available on video-on-demand, he surprises by playing the action with a straight face. But Miike still finds a way to include idiosyncratic imagery, such as a haunting look upon a woman who has been mercilessly disfigured by the film's villain or the odd humor of flaming cattle rampaging through the village's narrow streets.

The young feudal lord (played by Japanese pop star and actor Goro Inagaki) brandishes his power to rape and kill with impunity. With the ways of the samurai on the wane and many onetime warriors reduced to serving as government functionaries, an aging samurai (popular actor Koji Yakusho) assembles a small band of fighters to avenge one of the lord's victims. In a way, they are following the code of the samurai to bring an end to the era of the samurai, hoping for one last heroic battle in which to die with honor.

Much as many U.S. directors might harbor a not-so-secret desire to make a western, with that genre a means to explore the American psyche and national expansion, Miike noted that the samurai movie occupies a similar space for Japanese filmmakers.

"I would say westerns and samurai films are similar," said Miike, speaking by phone from Tokyo. "What is similar is a sense of older values, and I think how we often have a desire to hold onto these values. And like westerns the audience is mainly male; men who want to see the kind of men they want to be, strong and living up to expectations."

Though there are many parallels between samurai films and westerns — portraying a violent, honor-bound world of male-oriented aggression — there are key distinctions.

"There are a lot of similarities, in terms of the genre and the place the genre has, but the western is so about the lone individual taking a stand, and samurai movies only exist in a social context," said Grady Hendrix, a co-founder and co-director of the New York Asian Film Festival, which has shown numerous Miike films over the years. "The western is about the West; it's big, and it's unlimited. Samurai, that's a job title. It's like a salaryman movie; it's middle management with a sword instead of a suit.

"Certainly in Japanese cinema the samurai film looms large, kind of like the western does in the sense it is a really hidebound, stilted, rule-heavy genre," Hendrix added. "I think a lot of directors view it as a challenge to see what they can do within those limitations."

Miike was only 3 when the original "13 Assassins" was released. He had never seen it until approached by producers about two years ago with the idea of a remake. Though the samurai film, like the western, comes in and out of fashion, Miike noted there has been a resurgence of interest lately.

Many recent samurai films, Miike contends, have been "made for what a modern audience wants. So this means part of the story is taking the connections between modern-day men and women and putting them into a historical context, a modern-day love story shown in the past.

"Of course, our movie is not that kind of story. We try to look at what life was really like 200 years ago. '13 Assassins' is sort of more true to what a samurai movie really is."

After avoiding the genre for so long, Miike has already taken on a second samurai picture: "Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai," his remake of Masaki Kobayashi's 1962 classic, "Harakiri," will premiere next month at the Cannes Film Festival in a prestigious slot in the main competition and is his first work in 3-D.

Despite the recent boomlet of samurai films, Miike said one of the biggest challenges was that many of the technicians and behind-the-scenes craftspeople who used to make such movies are no longer working; even getting enough horses for bigger scenes can be difficult. In a way, he added, "13 Assassins" turned out to be a history lesson both on and off screen.

The film, he said, was a vehicle to "teach the next generation of filmmakers how to make this movie and not lose this art."
Wow - Harakiri was a classic samurai film. I never saw the original 13 Assassins but you can't call yourself a fan of chanbara and have missed Harakiri. Got to start a new thread on that right now.

[GeneChing]

Limited release - boxofficemojo.com says only 3 theaters.

'13 Assassins' review: Samurai undertake a desperate mission (http://www.nj.com/entertainment/movies/index.ssf/2011/04/13_assassins_review_samurai_undertake_a_desperate_ mission.html)
Published: Friday, April 29, 2011, 8:33 AM
Stephen Whitty

The great thing, typically, about a Takashi Miike film is that there’s no such thing as a typical Takashi Miike film.

Creepy, psychosexual horror? Yes, he did that in “Audition.” But then there’s the over-the-top splatter crime of “Ichi the Killer.” The goofy superhero story “Zebraman.” And even a children’s fantasy, “The Great Yokai War.”

His films — even the lightest ones — are often violent, and all of them are deeply connected to Japanese culture, both high and low. But apart from that — and his own determination to, first, serve the story — they’re all over the place.

And while that can make them hard for critics to characterize, it makes them wonderful surprises for audiences.

Miike’s new “13 Assassins” is another unconventional one. That’s because it embraces convention, remaking an Eiichi Kudo film from 1963, and looking back even further to the postwar Akira Kurosawa movies that helped re-establish Japanese cinema.

Set in 1844, it begins as a degenerate sadist emerges as the Shogun’s obvious heir — and his own nation’s worst enemy. So 12 samurai — aided, eventually, by one grimy little bandit — decide to kill him. Of course, they’ll have to take out his 200-strong personal army first.

It’s a desperate mission, almost destined to end in death — just the way the samurai like it.

The central idea of “13 Assassins” — that samurai would risk their lives, not for a feudal lord, but for such an amorphous concept as “the nation” — is a radical one, at least in the context of old Japan. So Miike has to establish just how despicable this villain is.
Movie Review

13 Assassins (R) Magnet (126 min.) Directed by Takashi Miike. With Koji Yakusho. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Now playing in New York.
Rating note: The film contains extreme violence and nudity..
Stephen Whitty's Review: THREE STARS

Luckily, no one is better at dramatizing that kind of queasy sadism. There’s a brutal beheading early on, and an episode of sexual mutilation no American director would dare touch (although it honestly wouldn’t have been out of place in “Titus Andronicus”).

Yet for the rest of the film — even as dozens of nameless warriors are being slain — a kind of restraint prevails.

We hear the nauseating sounds of hara-kiri, but don’t see the details. Swords whip back and forth across the screen and blood flows like water, but this isn’t a film of entrails. (As in most samurai movies, the individual duels are over within moments.)

But then Miike’s interest here is in those classic tales (and the modern Westerns they sometimes inspired). Old friends become honored enemies. Young wastrels seek to redeem themselves through duels. Villains are dispatched with a terse “See you in hell.”

The film has a slow and confusing start (worsened by the fact that most of the early characters are interchangeable middle-aged men with identical costumes and haircuts). Characterization is rudimentary, and the subtitles could be better. (“Listen up”? I don’t think so.)

But Koji Yakusho gives a noble performance as the samurai leader, and the film’s climax — as the two forces face off in a deserted, booby-trapped village — has a kind of crazy grandeur to it. Two determined armies, fighting hand to hand, sometimes with sticks and stones, while everything around them burns to the ground.

It looks like a nightmare but it feels like real life. Kind of like most Miike movies.

[wenshu]

Saw it last night at the Nuart.


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/29/arts/29THIRTEEN-span/THIRTEEN-articleLarge.jpg
Swords Drip Red With Revenge
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: April 28, 2011

A stirring, unexpectedly moving story of love and blood, the samurai movie “13 Assassins” opens with a dignified man seated alone in a large courtyard. Perfectly centered in the shot, he says nothing, his face a ferocious mask. But words are immaterial given his open shirt and the blade in his hand. The Japanese director Takashi Miike has no qualms about letting the red run down the screen. Here, though, instead of showing the blade sinking in, he moves in closer, letting the scene play out in the man’s crumbling face, the gray sky framing him as the moist, tearing sounds of the knife doing its terrible work fill the air.

View Clip... (http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/459029/13-Assassins/trailers)
Set at the close of the Edo period, not long before the Meiji restoration, “13 Assassins” is at once a tale of revenge and liberation, though it takes a little while to grasp the stakes. Mr. Miike, a jaw-droppingly prolific director who makes several movies a year and is perhaps best known in America for shockers like “Audition” and “Ichi the Killer,” plunges right into the action in “13 Assassins.” Initially that action is mostly bureaucratic and a question of strategy, one worked out by men plotting in darkened rooms, like the council of elders who convene after the ritual suicide and set the narrative on its course.

The dead man, it emerges, has committed seppuku to protest the baroquely barbaric excesses of Lord Naritsugu (a fantastic Goro Inagaki), the shogun’s half brother, who’s poised to assume even greater power. Pretty, petty and very likely insane, with a lazy walk and small twitchy smile, Naritsugu is the embodiment of outré imperial decadence. He doesn’t just rape the wife of a minion, he also murders her husband in front of her, hacking at the poor man’s (off-screen) body and lopping off the head with so much force it rolls across the floor. Later, during another convulsion of violence, while murdering a family, Naritsugu will kick a ball across a court and still later will boot another severed head in similar fashion. For him it’s all the same.

These cruelties and others serve as the evidence against Naritsugu, justifying the ensuing violence that will wash blood away with blood. This sanguineous deluge comes, but all in good time because first Mr. Miike has to round up his avengers, the 13 warriors of the film’s title. It’s a sign of difficult samurai times that the leader of the group, Shinzaemon Shimada (the great Koji Yakusho), enters perched on a fishing ladder, a pole in his hand. It’s unclear if he’s fishing for food or leisure, but the point is that he’s fishing, not fighting, having resigned himself to a quiet twilight. Like the not especially dirty dozen he assembles, Shinzaemon finds purpose in battle: he becomes a samurai again, with a flashing and wet sword.

Mr. Miike doesn’t offer a history lesson in “13 Assassins,” a remake of a 1963 film of the same title directed by Eiichi Kudo. But for those not schooled in Japan’s past (or period movies), it helps to know that during the relatively peaceful Edo period (roughly 1615 to 1868) the role of the samurai changed as the way of the warrior became the way of the heavily controlled and bureaucratized warrior. Rather than pile on the details or on-screen exegesis, the screenwriter Daisuke Tengan (working from an original story by Shoichirou Ikemiya) instead sketches in the historical context with bits of meaningful dialogue, as when Shinzaemon ruefully explains that he had all but given up on having a noble death. Needless to say, he gets his chance.

After assembling an initial team of 11, Shinzaemon heads out after Naritsugu. The journey is difficult, meandering and pleasurably eccentric, as a short fight with the opposition leads to an extended lope through a deep forest. There they pick up an unexpected addition, Koyata (Yusuke Iseya), the final assassin whom they find imprisoned in a basket dangling from a tree. A broadly comic figure, covered in dirt and rags, the rubber-limbed Koyata provides some of the movie’s easier laughs, but on the battlefield proves a fighter-philosopher. In the end, when bodies and blood cover every inch of ground, he shows that the way of the warrior isn’t a romantic and diverting fiction but an emblem of a harrowing, brutal reality.

13 ASSASSINS

Opens on Friday in New York, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas.

Directed by Takashi Miike; written by Daisuke Tengan, based on a story by Shoichirou Ikemiya; director of photography, Nobuyasu Kita; edited by Kenji Yama****a; music by Koji Endo; art director, Yuji Hayashida; costumes by Kazuhiro Sawataishi; produced by Michihiko Umezawa, Minami Ichikawa, Toichiro Shiraishi, Takahiro Ohno, Hirotsugu Yoshida and Shigeji Maeda; released by Magnet Releasing. In Manhattan at the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Koji Yakusho (Shinzaemon Shimada), Takayuki Yamada (Shinrokuro), Yusuke Iseya (Koyata), Goro Inagaki (Lord Naritsugu Matsudaira), Masachika Ichimura (Hanbei Kitou), Mikijiro Hira (Sir Doi), Hiroki Matsukata (Kuranaga) and Ikki Sawamura (Mitsuhashi).

[doug maverick]

pretty interesting interview. i want to see the kid ninja film he is talking about.


Takashi Miike on his Samurai epic, '13 Assassins'
The prolific Japanese genre maestro discusses arguably his greatest work
Japan’s Takashi Miike is one of the world’s most prolific filmmakers, having made an average of three films a year since 1991. He is best known in the UK for his 1999 J-horror shocker ‘Audition’ and his gleefully violent Manga adaptation, ‘Ichi the Killer’ (2001), though he prides himself on not being shackled to a genre or audience. His new samurai film, ‘13 Assassins’, was premiered to acclaim at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, while his next, ‘Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai’, has a competition slot at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

‘13 Assassins’ is a remake of a 1963 film by Eiichi Kudo. Do you recall the first time you saw it?
‘The film was released when I was three years old, so I didn’t see it when it first came out. It’s a popular work among samurai movie fans. When I was locked in to the remake, I watched the original for the first time. What impressed me was the power and energy that the film industry in Japan had at that time. But what saddened me was the sense that we had lost the ability to make films like this. We didn’t have any stunt horses in Japan when we started this film. Over half of the 13 assassins had never held a sword.’

Do you see yourself as a connoisseur of samurai stories?
‘Not really. I can honestly say that I have probably watched fewer films than any director in the world. Sure, I like to go out and buy a beer and drink it while watching a movie on a Friday night. But watching a movie for work? As a reference? No thanks.’

When you talk about old-fashioned Japanese filmmaking, the work of Akira Kurosawa comes to mind.
‘It was important for me to make the film in an old style, not rely on modern day techniques like CGI or flashy editing. And no romantic subplots! Over the years, people have remade Kurosawa movies – but have failed because they’ve been unable to adapt the story so that young audiences can appreciate it. Plenty of young people came to see “13 Assassins” in Japan and enjoyed it, but I imagine they had to work a little harder than they usually do.’

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It was made in collaboration with British producer Jeremy Thomas, a great champion of Asian cinema.
‘I don’t think I can say enough about how important Jeremy was to this film. I first met him at Venice when we presented “Sukiyaki Western Django” in 2007. He said, “I haven’t seen all your films, but I’ve seen enough of them to know that you make great movies. Here’s a book that I own the rights to – I want you to make it.” I was floored. He was so cool! He was very helpful with the script and in the edit. At the same time, he did what all good producers do: keep the people who were trying to interfere off my back.’

You work at an incredible rate. Are you usually planning your next film while making the current one?
‘I plan the next film during post-production. I don’t allow myself to think about the next one while shooting. I am often asked what the average shoot time is for me. I used to shoot a lot of films in two weeks. “Audition” was three weeks. I don’t aim to make lots of movies. It’s just my pace. Since “13 Assassins”, I have made two, a children's ninja school action film called “Nintama Rantaro” and an orthodox period piece like “13 Assassins” called “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai”.’



Author: Interview: David Jenkins

[wenshu]

Nintama Rantaro Teaser.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5njYJaBrjBo

[GeneChing]

Nintama Rantaro (http://martial.securesites.net/forum/showthread.php?t=60417) thread - used the admin copy function to clone your post, wenshu. :cool:

[GeneChing]

'13 Assassins': 1 of 2 big Takashi Miike remakes (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/19/NS0U1JEN1S.DTL)
G. Allen Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, May 19, 2011

Takashi Miike has been making films for 20 years (83 in total), and only now is becoming something other than a cult favorite.

This month, he has a film in the Cannes Film Festival's official competition for the first time ("Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai"), and his fierce, impressive throwback samurai picture "13 Assassins" opens in the Bay Area.

At age 50, after years of direct-to-video films, low-budget gangster movies and bizarre cult items ("Ichi the Killer"), Takashi is Japan's top director, and its most famous.

"It's not my goal to make so many movies," Takashi said via Skype from Tokyo through an interpreter. "It's just sort of a natural process, and I'm just doing my job. And I'm not tied to any genre; I'm willing to do anything. I just keep going."

"13 Assassins" is a remake of a 1963 Japanese movie. There is an evil lord who threatens to drive the shogunate into a bloody, unnecessary war; a group of samurai band together with the single mission of killing the lord, and probably themselves in the process, thus saving the empire.

Starring Koji Yakusho ("Shall We Dance?"), it is an epic film with a masterfully directed 45-minute climactic battle.

"In terms of scale and the sheer logistics, particularly the big battle scene, ('13 Assassins') shows such a huge step forward for Miike - not only in what he can do, but also in what he is allowed to do by the industry," said Tom Mes, author of "Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike" and co-founder of the Japanese film website MidnightEye.com, in an e-mail to The Chronicle.

"He has shown in the past that he can overcome any hurdles and unexpected calamities when shooting and end up with a very impressive film. ... The main set for 'Sukiyaki Western Django' was blown away by a typhoon halfway through the shoot. He has proven his mettle artistically and logistically, and I believe this is why he is now the sole director in Japan capable of successfully mounting a movie of the scale of '13 Assassins.' "

Takashi is known for explicitly depraved sequences, and if it seems he's been held in check in "13 Assassins," consider that 25 minutes (including a graphic rape scene) were cut from the original Japanese version for this U.S. release. Still, Takashi does seem to be moving toward a more classic feel: "Hara-Kiri" is also a remake of an early 1960s Japanese film.

"I think that Japanese movies made at that time were much more interesting and more powerful," Takashi said. "For over half of the actors (of '13 Assassins'), it was their first time fighting with a sword. We had to train them. And of course, they didn't have any experience riding horses. ... So they were fighting for their lives as characters, but also as actors as well!"

As he enters his second half-century, Takashi is going strong. Any advice for the rest of us on how to keep up with such a busy schedule?

"Drink a lot and smoke a lot, like I do!" he laughs.Well, I could probably skip the graphic rape scene as Miike has traumatized my retinas enough with his horrific visions already, but still, that's a lot of footage.

[Jimbo]

Best. Samurai Film. Ever. (IMO).

10/10.

*Add: There was one thing I won't mention that left a question mark for me, but other than that, I can't really find much to fault with the movie. I felt it lived up to the hype.

[Jimbo]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/13-assassins,1178290/critic-review.html

Although some of the newer Japanese movies are in the "Crouching Tiger" style (i.e., wirework, etc., etc.), I find it odd but sadly predictable that this reviewer can't seem to distinguish between the Japanese samurai and Chinese wuxia or kung fu genres. Kinda like confusing German and Italian cinema as being one and the same. It marrs an otherwise fine review.

*I don't know how to transfer (or whatever the process is called) the article like Gene does.

[GeneChing]

...I usually put it in quotes, then hypertext the title of the article to the original source. YOU MUST ALWAYS CREDIT YOUR SOURCE. :cool:

The DVD and BRD drops July 5th. We'll see what we can do about that here. ;)

[GeneChing]

Enter to win a 13 Assassins on DVD! (http://www.kungfumagazine.net/index.html) Contest ends 6:00 p.m. PST on 07/14/2011. Good luck everyone! :cool:

This DVD/BRD, which drops July 5th, has some the deleted scenes cut out of the U.S. version, including the deleted rape scene. I'm not sure if it has all 25 minutes but it has a lot. Most of the deleted scenes were trim for time, and they set it up well on the DVD so it begins with rather boring cutting room floor extras, moves to the rape scene which goes a completely different direction than I was expecting - after the amputee scene (which scarred my brain like only Miike can) I was wary of watching this but after watching it, well, it was a totally Miike character development scene that really adds to the film. Then the extras go on to deleted battle scenes, which of course, is the best part. The battles of more of the 13 have greater detail.

[Lucas]

Best. Samurai Film. Ever. (IMO).

10/10.

*Add: There was one thing I won't mention that left a question mark for me, but other than that, I can't really find much to fault with the movie. I felt it lived up to the hype.


mention it with a big *SPOILER* on top, im curious.

[Jimbo]

I just got it on DVD.

One thing I noticed is that there is a slight flicker in the picture, more in certain scenes than others. I noticed that flicker even more when I saw it in the theater a while back. I wonder if that was an intentional technique used my Miike, perhaps to give a feeling reminiscent of watchning old movies in theaters?

[GeneChing]

The winners of our 13 Assassins DVD online sweepstakes have been announced here. (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1117152)

[MightyB]

After watching this movie, I have one question - Is the guy they found in the woods a spirit or tengu?

[Jimbo]

That's a really good question. Although I liked the character, that's the one thing I thought really odd about the movie.

[wenshu]

Didn't Shinzaemon ask him if he is a Tanuki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanuki) when they find him in the cage?

[Jimbo]

That's right. Plus, Shinzaemon's nephew (I forget the character's name) asks him, "Are you immortal?" near the end.

Maybe the character was Miike's way of inserting some of his penchant for the bizarre in an otherwise un-bizarre movie (if that makes any sense). :)

[wenshu]

One of the really great things about this movie is how well written it is. In spite of the nuance that is invariably lost in translation the cultural subtext and humor still manage to come across really well.

When I saw it in the theater, I made a comment to my girlfriend about the Tanuki reference in the forest as she had recently read a book I recommended that prominently features Tanuki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Incognito).

I thought that Naritsugu and his crime's were more representative of the morbidly bizarre that Miike is infamous for.

[MightyB]

I read that description of a Tanuki that Wenshu linked to and I'd say it's spot on. It's actually a cool nod to Japanese culture and mythology to include that in the movie.