6/01/2010

Trailer Time: 13 Assassins

I confess that out of prolific director Takashi Miike's huge filmography, I've only seen three: Audition, Ichi the Killer, and One Missed Call.  Two of those three I'm a huge fan of. The other was remade into a weak-kneed American horror starring Ed Burns and Shannon Sossamon.

So I don't have the angle to give Miike's latest offering, 13 Assassins, it's proper place in his history. I do know that it's based off the 1963 original by Eiichi Kudo, of which I've seen exactly half of it and was duly impressed. It's very much like Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, so if you're as big a fan of that film as I am then you'll probably dig it.

This'll be a new experience for me, as I've yet to see what Miike can do when he's not trying to shock us with over-the-top gore and violence. This looks like a pretty straight forward remake. Check out the trailer below followed by a plot synopsis:



Plot Synopsis:
In the era of the Shogun, an evil young lord rapes and kills, assured of immunity by law. But he didn’t count on the Thirteen Assassins. A feared secret force, each with their own deadly skill, the Assassins undertake a suicide mission to wipe out the Lord. As he embarks on a perilous journey, the Assassins close off his escape route and ambush him in a village of death. But little do they know, they are outnumbered four to one by the Lord’s crack team of bodyguards. The streets will run red.