Director Takashi Miike
Staring Kôji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada and Yûsuke Iseya
Rated MA
Score 5/6

A group of assassins come together for a suicide mission to kill an evil lord.

In most regards 13 Assassins follows in spirit of such movies as The Dirty Dozen, Seven Samurai, the magnificent seven, The 300 Spartans and The Warriors. It should noted that the first act comes across as being rather slow because there is a lot of political exposition to get through before getting down to the action. In the hands of other directors, 13 Assassins ran the risk of becoming very gory very quickly which came down to being very careful and very precise with the action sequences.
Yūsuke Iseya gave a brilliant performance and had an interesting yet offbeat look about him.

13 Assassins is loosely based on historical fact, though it should be noted that filmmaker Takashi Miike stated that he was drawing a very long bow.

Other critics have called 13 Assassins part the dirty dozen and part seven samurai so I suppose this would be the magnificent baker’s dozen.