13 Assassins

[Lucas]

I would like to point out that the reviewer above, deborah young, i do not quite agree with. Simply the fact that she entirely missed the bushido tale in this film tells me she maybe should not have even reviewed it

*a few spoilers*

this is not really a review, i would just like to clarify some of what i see as inaccuracies in the reviewers write up. because i believe this film is very top notch...i suppose it would depend on how interested and knowledgable you are of feudal japan and the samurai society. i dont really want to be sexist but i will, i think many women completely miss or do not understand bushido.

first off, there are no 'bad' samurai, only the lord, the shogunates half brother. the bushido tale in this film actually comes from the point of hanbie, the main antagonist samurai, he dies to uphold his samurai status and the code of bushido. he knows who he is protecting deserves to die, yet that is not the way of the samurai. he protects his lord with his life, just like he should. he holds to the code of bushido until the end. he is not a bad guy though. simply a samurai.

the film exhibits the end of bushido, the downfall of the samurai caste, the fall of the tokugawa shogunate and the rise of the meiji era. these events do not actually happen in the film, but the events in the films story are developed to indirectly be a partial cause of this, which is summarized at the end.

additionally. its not so much elaborate death traps, but troop division. there are a couple of explosions, yet the main point is to show that the 200 troops are divided and that is how the 13 samurai are able to hold their ground and in the end, accomplish their goal. its a constant running battle. the 13 samurai initially think they will be only fighting 70 men. had that been the case, it would have been a 'total massacre'.