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Main => The Library => Topic started by: Sir Edward on 2011-11-13, 02:17:27

Title: 13 Assassins
Post by: Sir Edward on 2011-11-13, 02:17:27

I watched "13 Assassins" yesterday. It's a Japanese film (with subtitles), and it's very similar in concept to "7 Samurai", except instead of saving a town from marauders, the samurai are hired to assassinate a cruel and tyrannical leader.

The film gets pretty bloody at some moments, but the story is well told, the action scenes are well done, and it does explore some of the moral dilemmas involved in the story. The evil bad guy has a Samurai working for him as his protector, who sees loyalty and duty to his lord as the highest ideal of the samurai. The one who is hired to assemble a team to assassinate the bad guy instead sees the greater good of the people as being paramount.

You do see a lot of the samurai mentality (bushido) throughout the story. How much they're willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause. And when a very young samurai wants to join, at first the leader good guy says "he's too young", to which another samurai says "of course you know that a samurai's life is not measured in length". To which they all agree. :)

I forgot the exact wording, but there was this great line in there where the good guys are about to start slaughtering the enemy army, and say something like "We commemorate you with arrows". :)

Anyway, Netflix has it. It's worth watching.

Title: Re: 13 Assassins
Post by: Sir James A on 2011-11-13, 15:14:00

It's on my watch list as soon as I sign up for a NetFlix account, since Wild Hunt is on there too. Good to hear another positive review for it. I never saw it mentioned that it's subtitled, though, so I'll have to make sure I can devote extra attention to it (and not working on mail or forums or multi-tasking). Last film I saw like that was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and I felt like I probably missed some subtle parts in the acting since my eyes were fixed on the subtitles most of the time.

Title: Re: 13 Assassins
Post by: James Barker on 2011-11-16, 15:13:34

I saw this a number of months back; I felt it was a strong film and really enjoyed it. The battle at the end between school mates over honor was amazing.

Title: Re: 13 Assassins
Post by: Sir William on 2011-11-16, 16:06:27

Looking forward to adding this to the collection then.