A Band Apart, by David Bax

I am no good at predicting what movies will or will not be box office successes.  When I saw Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds on opening weekend, I never would’ve thought a film that gonzo, that long, that violent and that subtitled would go on to earn over $120 million domestically.  So I’m going to go on the record as saying I wouldn’t be surprised if Takashi Miike’s newest film, 13 Assassins, a similarly bloody period epic, becomes the director’s highest grossing film yet and something of an art-house hit.

Those familiar with Takashi Miike’s work will know that the main thing keeping him from any sort of mainstream success in this country is a sensibility that can only be described as deeply weird.  He has a preoccupation with the grotesque that transcends shock and can actually become quite transfixing and artful.  He allows you to see images of torture, perversion and pure physical abnormality through his own curious, nonjudgmental eyes.  These tactics have gained him a strong niche following, aided by the inescapable fact that some people just really like gory movies.

The gore most assuredly does flow in 13 Assasins, the story of a band of samurai who unite to take down an evil lord and his own personal unit of guards.  Of the other stuff, though, the bizarre body horror, there is relatively little, at least for this director.  Early on, there are some scenes of sickening sadism and the long-term effects of mutilation, but these are presented within the framework of a pretty cut-and-dried morality, allowing them to live in the realm of the film’s villain and not the film itself.

That simple moralizing is often integral to tales like this.  The film is a fairly traditional samurai story, or a fairly traditional Western if you, like me, are more familiar with that cousin genre.  It’s decidedly not a deconstructionist entry in the form.  There are good guys and there are bad guys and it’s never unclear which is which.  13 Assassins is a rousing, moving and very satisfying entry in the subset of action/adventure storytelling in which a group of incredibly badass guys get together for one very dangerous, likely fatal mission.  It’s The Dirty Dozen, Saving Private Ryan or maybe The Expendables (I haven’t seen that one), with lightning-quick, flashing blades and torrents of blood – literally, in one scene.

Lifting above that, beyond merely a very solid entry in a long tradition of films, is its spiritual pondering.  Samurai films are quite often about duty and this one is as well.  But it repeatedly, and perhaps without a real answer, questions the motivations behind such duty and such commitment to it.  Is the dedication to purpose a reward in itself, the film asks, or does one choose to so dedicate his life as a sort of gamble, betting that it will pay off for him in the end?  Is one of those choices more noble than the other?

These issues pop up consistently throughout 13 Assassins but don’t get the impression that this is a movie where a lot of time is spent sitting around talking about things.  There is unstoppably thrilling fight choreography at regular intervals that is not so much virtuosic as it is propulsive and unceasing, overwhelming the viewer in the best way by refusing to let up.  The final set-piece, which takes up most of the back half of the film, is creative, exciting and massive.  It’s the kind of scene a kid would dream up with his or her samurai action figures, absorbingly fun with all the twists and turns of a soap opera.

Takashi Miike enjoys a well-earned reputation as a grind-house/art-house auteur.  He also deserves a reputation as a great director, period.  His films aren’t just compilations of grotesquerie.  They are compelling pieces built on mood, tone and a singular vision.  With 13 Assassins, he proves that he can also be a populist storyteller without compromising any of the above.