13 Assassins Review

Release Date (UK) – TBC
Certificate (UK) – TBC
Country – Japan
Director – Takashi Miike
Runtime – 126 mins
Starring – Kôji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yûsuke Iseya, Gorô Inagaki

Set at the fall of the samurai era, 13 Assassins is the story of a group of warriors (mostly samurai) who band together in an attempt to assassinate the sadistic Lord Naritsuga Matsudaira (Inagaki). This is because they are worried about what would happen if he were ever to occupy the Shogun’s throne – the fear is that he would bring malice and cruelty upon the nation (he even claims at one point he would like to bring back the ‘age of war’ that plagued the country in an age past).

You won’t be far into the film until you (or those that know Akira Kurosawa’s work) will come to realise that this is nothing but a direct remake of Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai. We have a band of noble samurai reinforcing a small village as they await the enemy’s arrival (who greatly outnumbers them), and there are only minor differences from the original’s plot present.

Even the seven wonderfully realised main characters in Seven Samurai are repeated here in amongst the titular thirteen assassins; from the calm and clever leader, to the crazy loner warrior who claims to despise samurais (the excellent Toshirô Mifune in Kurosawa’s film), to the stern samurai who is far more skillful than the rest, right down to the young apprentice samurai who wishes to fight despite his age. These characters are unfortunately not as well developed as those upon which they are based, however. One problem and cause of this might be Miike’s choice to increase the number of heroes from seven to thirteen – meaning we get to know each of them less personally than in Kurosawa’s film, due to the screen time needed to introduce and address all thirteen men.

Where Seven Samurai had depth, elegance and a clever use of tension to match its excellent battle scenes, all that this film has is action. In its action though and its depiction of battles, it succeeds marvelously – Miike’s skill for gore, for which he is well known, rubs off very well here. What seems like a weighty introduction to the film we later realise was just a ruse purely constructed to make us despise the main villain here to the utmost extreme. Using the comic book-style of extreme horror that Miike is renowned for (for example, with Audition and Ichi the Killer) – which seems a little out of place here – Miike shows Lord Naritsuga committing the most heinous atrocities merely for his own amusement; and for the rest of the film he retains this ‘noble who kills just to satiate his boredom’-attitude.

The problem of this essentially being a straight remake of Kurosawa’s masterpiece is that it doesn’t acknowledge itself as such, which may lead most to the conclusion that all Miike is really doing here is stealing from cinema’s past and not recognising his influences. Another way to look at this, however, might be that Miike is trying to pay homage to one of cinema’s greatest films, as a form of respect for Kurosawa. It is a minor issue, but one can’t help but wonder if had this been presented as a direct remake/updating of Kurosawa’s masterpiece, it might have garnered more respect from it’s audience for what it does manage to achieve.

Seven Samurai isn’t the only influence here; this also has a strong western feel to the film. Such westerns as A Fistful of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven were of course themselves remakes of Kurosawa’s samurai films Yojimbo and Seven Samurai respectively, so all influences here really revert back to the Japanese master filmmaker anyway, perhaps with a little Leone influence also thrown in.

Putting the lack of depth aside, the action here excels remarkably, which some may argue is all that truly matters for this type of film. As soon as the enemy is caught in our heroes’ trap the film doesn’t let up in terms of excitement. Miike steps outside of his horror comfort zone here and strives to create something quite grand, and succeeds in producing his most accomplished and polished film to date. All in all, fans of Japanese samurai ventures should come out thrilled and exhilarated, despite this film’s flaws.

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Black Swan Review

Release Date (UK) – 11th February 2011
Certificate (UK) – 18
Country – U.S.
Director – Darren Aronofsky
Runtime – 103 mins
Starring – Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel

For his fourth feature, the critically acclaimed The Wrestler, Aronofsky delved into the world of wrestling and essentially pulled back the curtain to reveal just how brutal and demanding the sport (sometimes deemed the lowest art form, for those who consider it art at all) is and how driven and dedicated its performers have to be. Aronofsky calls Black Swan his companion piece to The Wrestler, and it is easy to see why; here he again reveals a grittier world that most don’t usually get to see, showing us the same passions, dedication, obsessions and physical bodily abuse, but this time in the name of what is often deemed the highest form of art – ballet.

As Aronofsky has stated: “These dancers train their whole lives and basically make all the effort disappear [on stage] and then when you go backstage you see all the muscles and tendons, blood and sweat, and breath.” And Mila Kunis has revealed that every actor who played a dancer in this film was injured during its shooting at some point, including herself.

Whilst continuing the cinéma vérité-handheld camera style of The Wrestler, then, Black Swan is also a very different beast. Firstly, Aronofsky decided to opt for less of a documentary feel for this psychological thriller/horror film (his labelling), due his concerns that it would “suck away all the tension.” Secondly, make no mistake; this is firmly and truly a horror venture. Aronofsky reverts here back to the kind of abstract horror prevalent within his first feature Pi; with scenes of horrific grotesquery that could be deemed as potentially supernatural, but which we know are instead purely the psychologically-born hallucinations of our protagonist.

Natalie Portman plays the talented ballerina, Nina, who is given the lead role in Thomas Leroy’s (Vincent Cassel) latest version of Swan Lake. The lead actress must play both ‘the white swan’ and ‘the black swan’, and Leroy has concerns that Nina doesn’t retain the unrestrained passion necessary to successfully portray the role of the black swan, due to her restrained and introverted nature, but ultimately decides to award her the role anyway.

Nina’s obsession with trying to master the extrovert and wildly passionate nature that is required for the role of the black swan leads her to become daring, reckless and rebellious in her personal life – often led by the sultry Lilly (Mila Kunis) – which in turn allows for a larger playing field upon which her troubled subconscious can run amok.

Both the bodily horror and sexual exploration here are taken to shocking extremes. The way Nina’s body is affected by her transformation into a black swan and some of the gruesome scenes her troubled mind conjures up are quite disturbing. Nina is a girl who is very shut-in and smothered by her slightly twisted and bitter mother (very similar to the mother-daughter relationship in Carrie) and as it is implied that Nina is a virgin, so when she eventually decides to let loose and explore her sexuality it is taken to unexpected lengths. Vincent Cassel plays a key role in this exploration, as the brilliant but all too promiscuous and forceful dance teacher, who Cassel himself states “uses his sexuality to direct dancers.”

Portman here is stunning. Aronofsky has detailed how she has always been typically cast in innocent roles (bar a small divergence in Closer) and how they both wanted to corrupt that innocent image a little with this film. Kunis is also very well cast in what serves as a comic relief role – something quite welcome, among all of the horrors.

Aronofsky again re-teams here with the brilliant composer Clint Mansell, who takes elements of Tchaikovsky’s music and makes his own amalgamation for this film, to brilliant effect. Being a ballet film, a lot hinges on the score underlying the ballet sequences and other scenes, and Mansell delivers his best effort since his genius score on Aronofsky’s The Fountain. This is certainly a film that you should endeavour to see at a cinema if you can, to appreciate Mansell and Tchaikovsky’s scores at a loud volume (indeed, Aronofsky recently bemoaned the fact that it is growing harder and harder to persuade audiences to see films in cinemas rather than at home or on transportable technological devices).

The ending is where this film truly exceeds itself and almost hits upon true perfection itself, as Nina is fully taken over by her darker nature, which has been slowly emerging and swallowing her throughout the film, and transforms (literally to her and our eyes) into the black swan. The way the ending unfolds, coupled with Mansell’s score reaching a beautiful crescendo, Portman’s ballet (she was a dancer before Leon), the excellent special effects used and a final elegant credit sequence, this culminates in a powerful manner that you won’t soon forget.

Ultimately Aronofsky seems to be addressing just what lengths some performers are willing to go to (or perhaps feel they need to go to) in order to achieve the perfect performance. It is about dedication to producing the finest art, no matter what the sacrifice. This is Aronofsky’s finest film since The Fountain, his most accomplished film to date and thus a key milestone for him in his evolution as a filmmaker.

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