FILM

Every Friday and Saturday night at 11:55pm, it's another Midnight Movie Classic at the Landmark River Oaks Theatre.

Friday-Saturday, May 27-28:  13 Assassins 

“The year is 1844. A young lord rapes and kills with impunity by virtue of his political connections. Though the era of the samurai is fading, an honest government official covertly enlists thirteen swordsmen to assassinate this sadistic lord before he can seize more power. With the clock ticking, the assassins lay a deadly trap for the lord and his army of bodyguards, culminating in one of the bloodiest, muddiest swordfights ever put to film.

As the leader of the thirteen samurai, Koji Yakusho (Tokyo Sonata, Babel) invokes Toshiro Mifune at both his most contemplative and charismatic. But it’s [director] Takashi Miike who steals the show through sheer spectacle—the climactic battle scene lasts a breathless forty-five minutes—filling the screen with visual references to more than just the original film; there are echoes of every samurai classic imaginable, not to mention some distinctly Miike touches.

Let’s just say, when the blood spills it flows.”—Colin Geddes, Toronto Film Festival.

Highly prolific, Miike is credited with over 80 films since making his directorial debut in the early 1990s. Landmark films in his illustrious career include Audition, Sukiyaki Western Django, Ichi the Killer, One Missed Call, The City of Lost Souls and the Dead or Alive yakuza trilogy. (Fully subtitled)

Director: Takashi Miike
Cast: Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Yusuke Iseya, Goro Inagaki, Masachika Ichimura, Mikijiro Hira, Hiroki Matsukata, Ikki Sawamura, Arata Furuta, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Masataka Kubota, Sousuke Takaoka, Seiji Rokkaku, Koen Kondo, Yuma Ishigaki, Kazuki Namioka, Kazue Fukiishi, Koshiro Matsumoto, Mitsuki Tanimura, Takumi Saito

MPAA Rating: R
Run Time: 2hrs 6mins
Release Year: 2010
Country Of Origin: Japan