Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins is a precisely-constructed samurai movie. The plot centers around Shinzaemon (Yakusho), a samurai tasked with killing the evil Lord Naritsugu (Inagaki) for terrorizing innocent townspeople and committing sadistic acts of violence. Shinzaemon enlists the aid of 12 other fighters, including his nephew Shinrouko (Yamada) and the hunter Koyata (Iseya), but they must defeat 200 soldiers and Naritsugu's bodyguard Hanbei (Ichimura) first. With some trickery and bribery, they force Naritsugu to go through a small, booby-trapped town in the hopes of evening the score and successfully completing their mission.
Much like Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, the first half of the movie focuses on character development while the second half centers around the climactic battle itself. Miike does a remarkable job showing us just how depraved Lord Naritsugu is, using overwhelmingly graphic imagery to an almost nauseating level. There are a few other characters that are equally well-developed (Hanbei, Shinrouko, Koyata), but most are forgettable and basically interchangeable. I was not particularly impressed with the writing or acting; most of the dialogue felt stilted with performances that were equally wooden, although perhaps that is the point. The second half is exciting, but the filmmaking itself is fairly lackluster, with uninteresting cinematography and standard editing. One thing that made it harder to enjoy was that everybody looks so similar. It is almost impossible to differentiate the various samurai. All I could tell was that the good guys were in black. Still, this is a very good film and highly recommended for anyone who likes this genre.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1436045/