Lex

13 Assassins

seven samurai + five samurai + one random guy = 13 assassins. Yes I can do math

bartmanbilly

13 Assassins

77/100 There’s evil and then there’s Naritsugu, this motherfucker the ultimate sadist and what made it worse was that no one dared say or do anything against him because of his position of power. The ending was not satisfying enough I’m sorry. You took your time to arrive there and a big motivation was the note written by the incapacitated girl and you don’t give him the same treatment? Chop his fucking limbs, chop his tongue, cut down slowly and kill him with suffering. Such men do not deserve the honor of having their head chopped off. I thought the Edo period was peaceful fam but you had scum like him rampaging through people. Now turns out my definition of an assassin is shaped by media cuz I went into this with the full expectation that we’d have 13 members most likely ronin who would go all Ghost of Tsushima on their opponent, attack from the shadows, play on stealth but an assassin is quite simply a murderer motivated by a political or personal agenda. Not my definition but it is what it is. So naturally I was a bit disappointed when they went all out, yes planning and all because how else do you go against 200 men but it gave way to an all out chaotic and grand action sequence which I’m not the biggest fan of in general. The bull CGI was fucked though lol. I thought the film started off extremely well, it was dark, nonlinear, steadily building upon the grotesque nature of Naritsugu and invoking the rage within us and Shinzaemon, masterfully done. I mean starting with seppuku itself is mad. Then we got Makino’s story which was worse then we got the peasant girl. I liked the dynamic between Hanbei and Shinzaemon, two competitive students who are now distinguished lords and members of the shogunate but rivals by nature, rivals by allegiances and the definition of samurai, defined by serving the lord for Hanbei and defined by defending the people for Shinzaemon. Of course the true Samurai is the latter. Two great tacticians and a great fight to end it all. It was tough to keep up with names and faces at the start with the same haircuts for all and the non linearity but we got there quite easily later on. And I was shocked when Koyata was fucking alive after being speared in the neck but turns out the extended edition does delve into his forest spirit storyline which would’ve made it more apparent. I suppose this theatrical edition gave us that shock factor and I read that it’s implied in the film but I didn’t quite notice it. Either way, a good twist of a world coming together to defeat evil. Grounded, bloody and at times poorly directed but a very good film on most fronts. I need to see more samurai films but I doubt there are too many.

Ivan

13 Assassins

Total Massacre One of the greatest 3rd acts I think I’ve ever seen in a movie. We need movies like this now. What I would give.