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You are here: Home Leisure Cinema review Cinema review: Pale riders
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07/07/2011Cinema review: Pale riders

Cinema review: Pale riders The latest addition to samurai lore is reviewed by Picturenose's James Drew.

Jûsan-nin no shikaku (13 Assassins) (2010)

13 Assassins is likely to be judged a modern classic – there's no doubt that director Takashi Miike (who gave the world the simply marvellous Audition (1999)) delivers a beautiful work here, which is a new version of the 1963 film of the same name by Eiichi Kudo, and is obviously clearly influenced by Akira Kurosawa's seminal Seven Samurai (1954). Interestingly, 13 Assassins is in fact not a remake in the strictest sense, but does draw heavily from the original, in which young and aged samurai, from different backgrounds, come together to fight the oppression and injustice of an evil lord and undertake one last great battle.



While Miike's skill as a director is clearly impressive, streets ahead of many of his Japanese contemporaries, his characterizations remain somewhat lacking – unlike, say, in Seven Samurai, the 'soldiers' themselves seem almost robotic in their dedication to their cause – apart from a vagabond, a non-samurai, a youngster and a leader, the others seem to be overly similar, bland even, so that the viewer's attention is not as focused on them as it should be.

 


Miike is a great director, both in the number of films to his credit and their variety and culture – 13 Assassins emerges a welcome addition to his impressive body of work, and, despite a few dry patches, which as indicated are not particularly enlivened by the viewer's interest in any given characterization, the film nevertheless should be rightly considered as a little gem, the epic final scenes of which will endure long in cinema history.

141 mins. In Japanese.
James Drew

 

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