13 Assassins

Anyone seen this yet? I watched it last night. Pretty good!

One of the remarkable things about it for me was that the bad guy is one of the least redeemable bad guys I've ever seen in a movie. Like, there is NOTHING about this guy that you can say is good.

I would love to if my goddamn city would get it. But alas, no theatre within 2 hours of me has it.

or 4, for that matter. matter of fact I dunno if anywhere in FL does.

The theatrical trailer I saw made it look like a Seven Samurai rehash with lots of extra orange-flamed explosions for modern audiences.

It's true that it does not look like the Miike I know&love, but that only makes it more intriguing.

I posted about it in the Miike thread. Very fun movie.

Was thinking about this film after reading this on Mishima's wonderful Tetralogy and I actually do like how the film goes through bits and pieces of what was throught of as a code before those 45 mins of murder.

this movie fucking kicks ass. if you're not familiar w/Miike then yr opinion might jibe w/Aimless's up above but as a sort of reconciling of what he does with Japanese cinema tradition/history I think it's kind of a fuckin' masterpiece. when he goes Total Miike in the first twenty minutes I was like "fuck dude I don't know if I can take a samurai movie w/yr sensibilities" but I ended up feeling like the motivating offense for the quest was kind of a calling card - hi, it's me, just pointing out that it's me, I now return to the template but keep your host in mind - you know?

i am familiar with miike and i think aimless is otm! but i also think the movie rules.

we've been talking about it on the miike thread too

takashi miike

thought i'd registered my approval but this was so much fun, really well put-together. the template thing is right, it's really gloriously formulaic.

just saw this.

totally boss.

I rewatched this over the weekend. Still rules.

was surprised that i didn't get bored by all the setup and didn't get exhausted by 45min of battling

first takashi miike film i've seen btw

its one of his best imo.

As I mentioned on another thread this is one of the best remakes I've seen. Very faithful to the 60s original - even down to shot setups and compositions in many cases. And Miike's additions/embellishments are totally there to help the story along.

Will watch this tomorrow.

this is on disc already? it's still playing in a theater here.

i think this was available VOD before it came to theaters, actually.

i thought this was pretty enjoyable, but it inevitably brought to mind 7 samurai and how many things that film did better -- like clearly individuating the various samurai, clarifying the relationships among them, establishing their skills and characters so they could pay off in the climax. and the climax seemed fairly botched to me. i have the usual complaint about incoherent action (not being sure what was happening until it was over, etc.) but also the fact that SPOILERS we didn't get to witness any of the preparations the 13 assassins made for the arrival of the bad guys meant that there was less of a payoff when they suddenly appeared.

i have a copy of the original film of which this is a remake--directed in the 1960s by, i think, eichii kudo. i'll watch it soon.

to be fair to do all the things i mentioned right the film would probably need another hour.

also was this shot on video? i saw it in 35mm but it looked very much like video, esp. in dark scenes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1436045/technical

says it was shot in 35mm, but artefacting suggests that the digital intermediate was not at a sufficiently high resolution.

I know some Miike but I couldn't quite dispel intimations of Seven Samurai. It's quite fun but I wish there was more to like.

less of a payoff when they suddenly appeared.

I think the surprise of it is what makes it really work.

Actually, it reminded me very much of Home Alone in that way. You see them doing some preliminary work but you don't get the full scope of what is to come until the wheels are in motion.

i think this was available VOD before it came to theaters, actually.

Yeah I watched it on VOD before it was in theaters.

The film is weirdly structured: expositional first third and climax/release in the last, and NO middle.

although I did like The Villain getting steadily MORE excited as the carnage increased.

The film is weirdly structured: expositional first third and climax/release in the last, and NO middle.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, July 21, 2011 6:36 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

isn't the middle their journey to the town??

this is probably the most traditionally structured* movie he's made!**

*excepting maybe bird people
**no, i haven't seen them all. i don't think miike's even seen them all.

he's made six since 7 pm EST.

gotta catch em all!

maybe if he were gay and German he'd catch up to Fassbinder.

apparently he already had two films in theaters in japan in 2011.

one of which is another remake of a classic: hara-kiri ... in 3-D!

i think i'd prefer miike's career to fassbinder's just because he's outlasted him by four years so far.

better hair too!

http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Galleries/Imported/BioPix/C/bio_19/miike-takashi1.jpg

miike killah

i was gonna say maybe miike will make a movie about fassbinder's last days but then we'd have an extended scene of ol' rainer lactating

i remember when audition was first hitting it big at festivals, the sight & sound crowd was ready to call him the new fassbinder - i guess he didnt live up to that, but that's more their fault than his

i thought this was pretty enjoyable, but it inevitably brought to mind 7 samurai and how many things that film did better

yeah this was my exact reaction, and thats why its good but not great. i'd still say its the best action movie of the year though, at least of what ive seen

still no cinema screening round here :(

i thought this was pretty enjoyable, but it inevitably brought to mind 7 samurai and how many things that film did better

this was my feeling as well. i guess that's not really a fair comparison, though.

I was pretty sure it was gonna be awesome based on the first 15 minutes, but then it sorta lost that ominous tone and became something that felt pretty familiar and less urgent. and the final battle bored me because i just find it boring watching random baddies get killed one after the other. the action didn't strike me as particularly creative or suspenseful, except for the final fight when there's a LOT of suspense because they're so close to their goal.

However, there are some really astonishing and even beautiful shots. especially a god's eye view of the blood spattered ground near the end. almost an abstract expressionist vision of pure violence.

would have benefited from an extra 1/2 hour to flesh out the other assassins

apparently there's a director's cut?

that was the cut I saw actually.

liking this a little more as i think about it. sorta obvious theme being the self-destruction of the samurai code/ethos...in that they are "not to wonder why" but in the actions of the film they enact the destruction of the shogun system and thus bring about the end of the samurai themselves, almost in effect killing themselves off.

also wikipedia helped clear this bit up:

Throughout the film, it is hinted that Kiga is not a human, as the woman he talks about, Upashi, is seen in a flashback eating raw meat by a pond, blood is shown trickling down her legs; and this may be due to her consumption of her unborn fetus, an act a demon would perform. The type of demon Upashi and Kiga are may not be evil, but rather like mountain spirits. Upon meeting him, Kiga says he was abandoned for laying his hands on the boss's woman. This statement has two meanings, as he does not say that he is a bandit, mercenary, or soldier, but someone who hunts animals from mountain to mountain. Therefore, by "the boss", he could mean the head Yōkai—the Yōkai were a type of demon from folklore.

aha

i figured he was a 'mountain spirit' type

I've given up on being able to see this on anything but eventually DVD. neither the Regal near me that picks up 1-2 art films a month, or the local art theatre have acquired it or have it on the schedule :/

it's on netflix instawatch...

oh shit really? hadn't logged on in a while and I didn't realize - well then, problem solved, cos I have that!

This was great. I love that Miike is so versatile that even this late in the game, relatively speaking, he can knock out a "Seven Samurai" homage and do that film justice while still maintaining his sensibilities.

i totally loved this. what a beautiful lurid movie. still not gotten around to seeing any other miike.

i keep thinking about this!

one thing lingered in my head throughout -- how late in history this is meant to take place. pretty sure miike meant for us to view this as a cramped, aging society unable to govern itself anymore. loved the little details like this, that they could count on most of the rest of the samurai class as being as bored and out of training as they are. and how old a lot of the dudes were!

idk much about the samurai genre, maybe this is a common element

one the one hand, the social order is stable and self-sustaining enough, if rigid, but can't deal with an obvious moral horror like the villain. there's no recourse except a lot of death.

on the other hand, the shogun's nephew and his wild sadism kind of gives all of these guys something to do. there's a suspicion that a feudal war-state is pointless when there's peace -- loved the line near the end where the villain is like, "let's bring back the days of constant civil war! this rules!" and he's kind of right.

This is a common element in the samurai genre.

really? i thought those were more commonly set during the earlier civil war periods, not the later stable (wikis furiously) edo period. huh.

yeah, def. the 'aging samurai takes on odd jobs because his profession has become obsolete' thing is a very common samurai theme and I pretty much always love it.

not sure on the timeline for this one tho.

1844

so, tail end of edo then:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_period_in_popular_culture#Films

I should probably watch this again. as far as movies go, I haven't been as pumped as I was when the TOTAL MASSACRE banner made a re-appearance in long time.

yeah that was ace

I was thinking earlier today that this ws Miike's attempt to re-make Rambo III and not Seven Samurai