Please note: this article contains spoilers. I had added these Glasgow Film Theatre notes yesterday but blogger appears to have gone a bit squiffy and deleted them, so here they are again...
The wet sound of slicing may nauseate, but the scene of seppuku that opens Jûsan-nin no shikaku (13 Assassins) is relatively restrained in its staging, with blood and entrails kept (mostly) out of shot. Restraint is not a word often associated with director Takashi Miike, as the run of films which first brought him infamy in the West testify: by comparison, Visitor Q (2001) opened with a lengthy scene of father-daughter incest before graduating to necrophilia; Dead or Alive’s (1999) frenetic opening montage incorporated suicide, slit throats and sodomy; while Ichi the Killer’s (2001) credits emerged from a pool of the titular character’s semen. Often released under the now-defunct distributor Tartan’s ‘Asia Extreme’ label, such films forged Miike’s notoriety for imaginatively-depraved and intensely-violent cult produce. His more recent works have only infrequently found distribution in the UK, so for many 13 Assassins will mark a re-emergence after a period of apparent silence; Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) is the exception, its higher profile partly thanks to the presence of fan Quentin Tarantino in the cast-list – though with thirteen other features to his name since 2005, any impression of slackened prolificacy is illusory.
A remake of Eichii Kudô’s 1963 jidaigeki (or period film) of the same name, 13 Assassins marks Miike’s purest entry into the ever-popular chanbara genre, or sword-fighting film, typically set in the Tokugawa period of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (his last effort in this genre, depending on how broadly you apply the term, was arguably Izo (2004), in which a crucified samurai travelled through time slaying indiscriminately). Kudô was himself born of samurai lineage, though was reportedly reluctant to glorify the samurai on screen, ‘convinced they had created an unjust social order’1. Kudô’s film evidenced this inner-conflict, with its themes of untrammelled power and rigid social inequality offering a critique implicating, amongst other things, the supplication of individual subjectivity to a corruptible ruling class, and the complex tension between the twin concepts of ninjo (personal feelings) and giri (loyalty to your master). However, despite its critical stance, the results were largely dismissed at the time as a pale imitation of Akira Kurosawa’s genre-defining Seven Samurai, released nine years earlier.
Kurosawa is also likely to inform contemporary viewers of Miike’s remake. While Miike hews closely to Kudô’s original 2, Seven Samurai remains the more obvious counterpoint due to its significantly higher profile. There are broad similarities in the plot – a vastly out-numbered band of principled samurai in a seemingly hopeless battle – but also more subtle echoes, such as Yûsuke Iseya’s wide-eyed performance as the ambiguous hunter Koyata, which seems to self-consciously channel Toshiro Mifune’s mercurial intensity. For fans of Miike’s more extreme fare, the idea of something so classically-inspired sitting alongside the likes of 2001’s Happiness of the Katakuris (a musical featuring zombies and cannibals) or 2003’s Gozu (a surreal blend of yakuza politics and cow-headed demons) in a single filmography is liable to shock more than any number of arterial sprays. Perhaps inevitably, 13 Assassins has therefore been heralded as a reputation-changer for the enfant terrible: it was nominated for best picture at the Japanese Academy Awards, played in competition for the Golden Lion at Venice, while his next release – another chanbara entitled Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011) – plays in the main competition at Cannes this month.
Not that 13 Assassins is without its brutal excesses. Almost half its running time is given over to a lengthy battle sequence in which limbs are furloughed and heads lopped from shoulders, suggesting that what is subtle by Miike’s standards is not necessarily subtle by the standards of others. The target of the titular assassins is Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), younger brother of the Shogun, who uses his unchecked dominion to inflict suffering indiscriminately. Naritsugu’s monstrousness is never in doubt: within the first fifteen minutes, a series of flashbacks and conversations reveal a catalogue of horrors, with the sadistic Lord gleefully decapitating one man, driving the victim’s wife to suicide; using bound children as archery targets; and removing a woman’s limbs and tongue, abusing her and leaving her for dead. Such cruelty persuades the assassins’ de facto leader Shinzaemon (Kôji Yakusho) to accept the job from concerned government figures keen to ensure Naritsugu does not acquire further power. Moreover, it helps persuade the audience of the mission’s necessity, even as the oppressively dark mise-en-scène of the early scenes portends seemingly certain defeat.
Elsewhere, however, a more complicated morality is at work, one without obvious parallel outside of its immediate context. Lord Naritsugu is defended to the death by his samurai Henbei (Masachika Ichimura), whose loyalty to his master (giri) takes precedence over all other considerations. Though visibly horrified by his master’s actions, personal emotions do not supplant steadfast obedience as Henbei’s primary motivation. When he is eventually killed in battle by Shinzaemon, the callous contempt shown by Naritsugu to his fallen servant appears to upset Shinzaemon more than any other aspect of the preceding slaughter, the lack of respect an affront to the bushido code.
However, despite this implied maturation, one last glance at Miike’s filmography suggests 13 Assassins should not be misinterpreted as a permanent change of direction for the director. It was preceded by a sequel to 2004’s Zebraman (Zebraman: Vengeful Zebra City), which detailed the further adventures of the dichromatic, alien-battling hero, while his next completed project is the self-explanatory Ninja Kids!!!, suggesting that Miike is likely to subvert expectations for a while longer yet.
Christopher Buckle
Researcher and journalist
University of Glasgow
A remake of Eichii Kudô’s 1963 jidaigeki (or period film) of the same name, 13 Assassins marks Miike’s purest entry into the ever-popular chanbara genre, or sword-fighting film, typically set in the Tokugawa period of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (his last effort in this genre, depending on how broadly you apply the term, was arguably Izo (2004), in which a crucified samurai travelled through time slaying indiscriminately). Kudô was himself born of samurai lineage, though was reportedly reluctant to glorify the samurai on screen, ‘convinced they had created an unjust social order’1. Kudô’s film evidenced this inner-conflict, with its themes of untrammelled power and rigid social inequality offering a critique implicating, amongst other things, the supplication of individual subjectivity to a corruptible ruling class, and the complex tension between the twin concepts of ninjo (personal feelings) and giri (loyalty to your master). However, despite its critical stance, the results were largely dismissed at the time as a pale imitation of Akira Kurosawa’s genre-defining Seven Samurai, released nine years earlier.
Kurosawa is also likely to inform contemporary viewers of Miike’s remake. While Miike hews closely to Kudô’s original 2, Seven Samurai remains the more obvious counterpoint due to its significantly higher profile. There are broad similarities in the plot – a vastly out-numbered band of principled samurai in a seemingly hopeless battle – but also more subtle echoes, such as Yûsuke Iseya’s wide-eyed performance as the ambiguous hunter Koyata, which seems to self-consciously channel Toshiro Mifune’s mercurial intensity. For fans of Miike’s more extreme fare, the idea of something so classically-inspired sitting alongside the likes of 2001’s Happiness of the Katakuris (a musical featuring zombies and cannibals) or 2003’s Gozu (a surreal blend of yakuza politics and cow-headed demons) in a single filmography is liable to shock more than any number of arterial sprays. Perhaps inevitably, 13 Assassins has therefore been heralded as a reputation-changer for the enfant terrible: it was nominated for best picture at the Japanese Academy Awards, played in competition for the Golden Lion at Venice, while his next release – another chanbara entitled Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011) – plays in the main competition at Cannes this month.
Not that 13 Assassins is without its brutal excesses. Almost half its running time is given over to a lengthy battle sequence in which limbs are furloughed and heads lopped from shoulders, suggesting that what is subtle by Miike’s standards is not necessarily subtle by the standards of others. The target of the titular assassins is Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), younger brother of the Shogun, who uses his unchecked dominion to inflict suffering indiscriminately. Naritsugu’s monstrousness is never in doubt: within the first fifteen minutes, a series of flashbacks and conversations reveal a catalogue of horrors, with the sadistic Lord gleefully decapitating one man, driving the victim’s wife to suicide; using bound children as archery targets; and removing a woman’s limbs and tongue, abusing her and leaving her for dead. Such cruelty persuades the assassins’ de facto leader Shinzaemon (Kôji Yakusho) to accept the job from concerned government figures keen to ensure Naritsugu does not acquire further power. Moreover, it helps persuade the audience of the mission’s necessity, even as the oppressively dark mise-en-scène of the early scenes portends seemingly certain defeat.
Elsewhere, however, a more complicated morality is at work, one without obvious parallel outside of its immediate context. Lord Naritsugu is defended to the death by his samurai Henbei (Masachika Ichimura), whose loyalty to his master (giri) takes precedence over all other considerations. Though visibly horrified by his master’s actions, personal emotions do not supplant steadfast obedience as Henbei’s primary motivation. When he is eventually killed in battle by Shinzaemon, the callous contempt shown by Naritsugu to his fallen servant appears to upset Shinzaemon more than any other aspect of the preceding slaughter, the lack of respect an affront to the bushido code.
However, despite this implied maturation, one last glance at Miike’s filmography suggests 13 Assassins should not be misinterpreted as a permanent change of direction for the director. It was preceded by a sequel to 2004’s Zebraman (Zebraman: Vengeful Zebra City), which detailed the further adventures of the dichromatic, alien-battling hero, while his next completed project is the self-explanatory Ninja Kids!!!, suggesting that Miike is likely to subvert expectations for a while longer yet.
Christopher Buckle
Researcher and journalist
University of Glasgow
1 Robin Gatto (2007) ‘Eiichi Kudô’s Guerrilla Filmmaking’, http://www.midnighteye.com/features/eiichi-kudo%27s-guerrilla-filmmaking.shtml
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