13 Assassins

Set in Japan toward the end of the feudal era, the film follows a veteran samurai, Shinzaemon Shimada, who is secretly approached by an official alarmed at the growing influence of Lord Naritsugu, the shogun's half-brother. Naritsugu answers to no law, and his cruelty has convinced those around him that his rise threatens the country with ruin and war. Shinzaemon takes on the task of stopping him and gathers a small group of fighters, among them his nephew Shinrokuro and the young Koyata, to prepare an ambush along the lord's escorted journey.

The film is a remake of a 1963 samurai drama. Takashi Miike directed it as his twenty-third feature in chronological order, arriving between Crows Zero II and Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai; Daisuke Tengan and Kaneo Ikegami wrote the screenplay. Koji Yakusho heads the cast as Shinzaemon, with Takayuki Yamada, Yûsuke Iseya, Goro Inagaki as Naritsugu, Kazue Fukiishi and Hiroki Matsukata among the twenty-five credited performers.

Made for about six million dollars, it returned roughly nineteen million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.5/10 from around 71,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.3/10 from about 1,320 votes, while a critics' rating of 7.9/10 from 129 reviews places it somewhat above those audience scores.