13 ASSASSINS (2010)

The men-on-a-mission sub-genre benefits greatly from a worthy threat, an adversary so substantial that the team of heroes assembled feels not only necessary but outmatched.  That could be why so many of the most popular men-on-a-mission movies involve sticking it to the Nazis.  Well, no Nazis necessary here to make an all-time classic.  This stunning film provides quite the sinister antagonist: Lord Naritsugu.  He's so young and handsome that he feels like the star of a different movie, but here, he is a stone cold psychopathic butcher, a man who barely even seems to enjoy his wanton killing sprees and impulsive rape-murder sessions.  Thirteen might seem like plenty of assassins to end his reign of terror, but since Lord Naritsugu is the Shogun's half brother and travels with a small army of bodyguards, the titular group has their work cut out for them.

Shinzaemon, the leader of the fateful group, is introduced in an instantly classic moment I won't spoil that perfectly illustrates one of the themes of the film: samurai are antiquated.  Their concept of honor has long ago been destroyed by the master they swore to protect becoming an unrepentant monster.  Shinzaemon assembles his team, including eager students who have spent lifetimes practicing for conflicts that will never arrive, elder samurai ready for a battlefield death, highly skilled ronin with no where else to turn, and his own nephew, a gambler who never much cared for honor to begin with.  They pick up a forest bandit along the way and the thirteen battle Naritsugu's bodyguards in a small abandoned village.

This film is very, very bloody.  The first half features only fleeting instances of violence; it opens with seppuku and later a former victim of Naritsugu is seen, showing all the signs of his previous cruelty.  The final battle takes up most of the latter half of the film and occurs more or less in real time.  All the carnage may terrify viewers but the murderous young Naritsugu shows his first real emotion, becoming giddy as a schoolboy when the blood first starts flowing, but later, petulant as a schoolboy when the tides turn against him.  His chief samurai Hanbei tries to persuade Shinzaemon to take no action early in the film, and their conflict illustrates another of the movie's themes: battle training vs. battle experience.

Director Takashi Miike is better known for his horror films, which share the gruesome violence of this film, and this talent for bloodshed makes him the perfect man to deliver a 'warts and all' presentation of the samurai era.  Sword fighting may look elegant when one guy is practicing it in front of a waterfall, but you when you involve multiple parties, somebody is getting hacked to pieces.  Ultimately, this is a film about honor, where the honorable thing to do is take up arms against your lord and use every dirty trick in the book to overcome the odds.  A bold, endlessly entertaining film, bloody as all hell but thoughtful and sober enough to earn it, the test of time might elevate it to the level of Seven Samurai.