Jûsan-nin no shikaku

Plot synopsis:
In 1844 in Japan as the Tokugawa Shogunate faces extinction, Lord Matsudaira Naritsugu of Akashi rapes, tortures, and murders his own citizens at will. He is protected because the Shogun is his half-brother. Sir Doi Toshitsura, the Shogun's Justice, realizes the situation will become more dangerous after Naritsugu ascends to a higher political position. After a wronged party publicly commits seppuku as a way of showing disdain for Lord Naritsugu, Sir Doi seeks out a trusted older samurai, Shimada Shinzaemon, who served under the former shogun. Sir Doi secretly hires him to assassinate Naritsugu. However, Naritsugu's loyal retainers – led by Hanbei, an old contemporary of Shinzaemon – learn of the plot by spying on Doi's meetings.
Shinzaemon gathers eleven more samurai, whom Sir Doi knows can be trusted including Shinzaemon's nephew, Shinrokurō. The twelve plan to ambush Naritsugu on his official journey from Edo back to his lands in Akashi. However just before they leave, Hanbei arrives and warns his old colleague that he will suffer grave consequences if he tries to kill Naritsugu.
The group, with the legal authority and financial assistance of Sir Doi, buy the help of town Ochiai in order to create a trap. They also enlist the help of a minor lord whose daughter-in-law was raped and son murdered by Naritsugu. With troops, he blocks the official highway forcing Naritsugu to head for the town and the trap. During the assassins own journey to the town, they are attacked by ronin paid off by Hanbei to kill the plotters. The group decides to head through the mountains but end up getting lost. In the process they encounter a hunter named Kiga Koyata who becomes their guide; Shinzaemon eventually recruits him as the thirteenth assassin.
The town is converted into a elaborate maze of booby traps and camouflaged fortifications. However, when Naritsugu and his retinue arrive their numbers have been swelled with additional troops. The thirteen assassins are no longer facing seventy men-at-arms; now, there are two hundred. A lengthy battle follows with Naritsugu and his guards trapped inside the village and attacked on all sides by arrows, explosives, knives, and swords—with the exception of Koyata who fights with rocks in slings. Against this carnage, the deranged noble Naritsugu, is elated by the violence. He tells Hanbei that when he ascends to the Shogun's counsel he will bring back the wars of the Sengoku period.
Slowly the assassins are killed but not before they inflict heavy damage on the Akashi forces. Eventually, Naritsugu and Hanbei are cornered by Shizaemon and Shinrokurō. After Shizaemon kills Hanbei, Naritsugu kicks his loyal retainers head away insulting the elder samurai. Contemptuously, Naritsugu announces that both the people and samurai have only one purpose and that is to serve their lords. But Shizaemon counters by telling Naritsugu that lords can't live without the support of the people, and that if a lord abuses his power the people will always rise against them. Naritsugu and Shinzaemon both mortally wound each other. As the lord crawls away in mud crying and experiencing fear and pain for the first time, he thanks Shinzaemon for showing him excitement before Shinzaemon chops his head off.
After Shinzaemon dies, Shinrokurō wanders through the carnage. He meets the hunter Koyata who has made a miraculous recovery after being stabbed in the neck by Naritsugu. The pair then make their own ways out of the town. An epilogue states that the Shogun and his government covered up what really occurred announcing that Naritsugu died of illness on the journey back to his lands. In twenty-three years, the Tokugawa Shogunate would be overthrown with the Meiji Restoration.

Tags: violence

Review:
Samurai assassins. The story of Thirteen Assassins begins with a vassal of the Akashi clan committing seppuku in front of a daimyo's house. As it turns out, it's in protest to his lord raping and killing a girl and her samurai husband. This scandal is quickly covered up as the Akashi lord happens to be the Shogun's younger brother. What makes matters worse is that this reckless scoundrel will be soon appointed to a higher political position which could prove to be detrimental for the entire Shogunate. In response to that, a plot is hatched: 13 assassins will undertake the suicide mission to murder him on his way back from Edo.The movie can be roughly split in two parts. The first hour is purely character-driven, in a anti-establishment style that resembles Masaki Kobayashi and his masterful work in Seppuku and Samurai Rebellion. The last half hour is totally action-oriented as we see the Akashi clan entourage being trapped in a village and fighting to protect their lord, at which point the film channels heavily the corresponding part of Seven Samurai.Very good, obscure, jidai-geki from the 60's done in stark monochrome, the genre's proper palette. Kudo is a moderate talent who draws heavily from the tradition of filmmaking he belongs to, but competently executes his material. We find here familiar jidai-geki themes; oppression of the weak by those in authority, old friends that have to face off, a vassal that sees how villainous his lord is yet he doesn't hesitate to sacrifice his life for him. It's not quite as elaborate and tragic as Kobayashi's work and is pretty much abandoned after the first half hour where the emphasis shifts to the planning of the assassination, but it still provides a solid dramatic backdrop. The final battle could have been better though, not bad by any means but it won't make any best-final-fights lists either.Overall a very solid and commendable effort, beautiful to look at with a nice story and some action to go with it. Fans of the genre will want to take a look.. A very good samurai movie. A provincial lord kills and rapes with impunity, but no-one can touch him because he's the Shogun's younger brother. After one of the wronged parties publicly commits hara-kiri, a minister decides enough is enough and, though his hands are officially tied, drops big hints to a trusted samurai before telling him the Japanese equivalent of 'this conversation never took place'.The samurai gathers eleven others (the twelfth will join them later), tells them it's a suicide mission (naturally they're all up for it) and they hatch a plan to ambush the evil lord on the long journey from Edo (the ancient name for Tokyo) to his home province. But the would-be assassins are outnumbered four to one by the lord's crack team of bodyguards, whose leader is a resourceful man...This is the first of Eiichi Kudo's films I've seen, and now I can't wait to watch the others. Like Masaki Kobayashi's Hara-Kiri and Rebellion, it's in fabulous widescreen black and white. The sprawling cast of characters is a little confusing at first, but gradually some of the individual samurai begin to stand out from the crowd - the cool swordsman, the cynical wastrel, the joker with gambling debts.There aren't really any memorable duels like the one in Hara-Kiri, but the final battle is terrific. The samurai take over a village, convert it into one big labyrinthine mousetrap, and close off alternative routes to ensure their target and his men will end up there. It's a superbly choreographed and sustained set-piece, and unbelievably tense. There are several similarities with The Seven Samurai; Kudo provides us in advance with a map of the area in which the showdown will take place, and ensures the two sides can be easily distinguished from one another by the hue of their costumes, so even though the action is chaotic, we don't get lost.Highly recommended for fans of The Seven Samurai and Jidaigeki in general. If you can read French subtitles, it's available on a beautifully restored Region 2 DVD in a boxed set from the French company Wild Side. If British or American DVD distributors have any sense, they'll get it subtitled into English as well.. Often Overlooked, Genre-Defiant Gem. Outstanding jidai-geki, first of Kudo's trilogy which reflects its time of production while elaborating and exceeding the genre tropes. The characters, protagonist and antagonist alike, are typically shown to be motivated by bushido. However the late Tokugawa setting establishes these not as typical giri/ninjo conflicts of the genre, but as largely outdated ethics that turn their proponents into victims of historical and social forces beyond their control or full comprehension.Often overlooked abroad, 13 Assassins is clearly on the same level of excellence as Masaki Kobayashi's Seppuku or Hiroshi Inagaki's Chushingura/Loyal 47 Ronin of the year before. It shares the revolutionary spirit and critical sensibility of Hideo Gosha, Kihachi Okamoto and Kenji Misumi. And the climactic village death trap might even be interestingly contrasted to the finale of Seven Samurai.******************SPOILER*AHEAD************************This sentiment is even voiced more explicitly by the assassins leader, played by Chiezo Kataoka during his final duel with the villain's otherwise noble chamberlain, Ryuhei Uchida. They are not killing one another out of personal malice, but necessity, and it is the anti-climactic fashion of Kataoka's end that defies the cliché of genre expectations.So too does the subsequent death of his loyal vassal, played by Ko Nishimura. The dying Kataoka tells his men to call a halt to the now even more senseless killing, as their historic objective has been reached. However, word does not reach the desperate and unarmed Nishimura in time. Instead of the noble death we might expect for a character of his type, he is brutally killed after a series of dodges and attempts to escape.Much of the dialogue throughout makes a point of how many koku of land/rice each main character's title encompasses. This serves to drive home the point of human life's precise monetary value, even more so does the film's final shot.I was a little disappointed after having seen Tetsuro Tanba and Junko Fuji in the opening credits to find that they are not featured that prominently. However, the film certainly does not suffer as a result. Akira Ifukube's score is typically great, and the art direction of Tokumichi Igawa, (Makai tensho, Iga ninpocho) is spectacular. The 13 assassins' conversion of the village into a series of death traps provides an excellent backdrop which supports the theme by providing countless opportunities for strategic retreat and indirect combat.