It should just be said right now that there is a 40 minute long action sequence that closes Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins, and if you can just sit through the film for that alone, it's totally worth it. Luckily, there are still more reasons than just that to catch this samurai epic.
The whole film is greatly directed; the action sequences are both comprehensible and thrilling and the work before that is equally as impressive. The cinematography by Nobuyasu Kita captures the sweeping grandness of the story and it's certainly clear why these assassins are so passionate to kill this villain. It's full of typical samurai thematics such as honor and bravery, while also accenting the struggle to respect the declining samurai genre directly through the characters who also try to honor the brethren with who they once stood with. It manages that, to a point, though it lacks the depth of a Kurosawa film and might have too many characters to ever get invested in any of them. But as a purely enjoyable action film, those last 40 minutes and the final denouement sequence will leave you breathless. B-
The whole film is greatly directed; the action sequences are both comprehensible and thrilling and the work before that is equally as impressive. The cinematography by Nobuyasu Kita captures the sweeping grandness of the story and it's certainly clear why these assassins are so passionate to kill this villain. It's full of typical samurai thematics such as honor and bravery, while also accenting the struggle to respect the declining samurai genre directly through the characters who also try to honor the brethren with who they once stood with. It manages that, to a point, though it lacks the depth of a Kurosawa film and might have too many characters to ever get invested in any of them. But as a purely enjoyable action film, those last 40 minutes and the final denouement sequence will leave you breathless. B-