Takashi Miike's (Ichi the Killer, Audition) 13 Assassins is an interesting film.
Borrowing from two American productions, John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960), and Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai (2003), Mr. Mikke has based his film on a great western and a tale of an American in Japan in the 19th century, and created from them, an interesting Japanese mythos, which according to the Blu-ray from Magnet, is called a samurai film.
Unlike the Taiwanese Crouching Tiger, and American films such as the Matrix, rather than fly by wire acrobatics, here we have a group of well-trained men, battling an evil royal for the good of the people.
With a huge final sequence, 13 Assassins could be the beginning of a new trend in filmmaking.
As to the Blu-ray, Magnet (Magnolia Home Ent.) has given us a magnificent rendering of the film, which was shot S35, and posted as a 2k DI.
Checking on-line, I do note that there may have been a couple of samurai films made decades ago, but in black & white.
A terrific piece of entertainment released on a gorgeous Blu-ray, with Japanese audio presented as a DTS-HD Master. I would hate to think that anyone might view this with the English dub track. And one tiny problem, mentioned only for transparency's sake. The first half dozen or so sub-titles are on screen a bit too briefly, otherwise...
Highly Recommended.
RAH
