13 Assassins Review

To state that 13 assassins is nothing but a poor man Seven Samurai is to sell it totally short. It may not be as original or as well scripted as Kurosawa’s samurai epic, but what it lacks in originality, it makes up in pure intensity and passion. A must see.

Not knowing anything about a film before you go into it is always a pleasure (a fact I reflect on rather ironically as someone who reviews films for others...) Going into 13 assassins, I expected something totally different than what I got; a throw away action film with some samurai trimmings, akin to many other recent samurai based films. Instead what I got was a serious drama, one that takes it source material with upmost respect and discipline, but one that does so with such pure passion, that it simply can’t be over looked. If nothing else, it praises the work of Kurosawa’s most famous film to the greatest extent.

Fifty years On: Yojimbo

So another new feature idea that I had, why don’t I review films that are fifty years old this year (so films from 1961) to see if they are still good in the 2011! This works out quite nicely because I quite recently watched a film from 1961, Yojimbo, and here are my thoughts on it!

Akira Kurosawa is probably one of the most influential directors in film history, or so it could be argued. It is within the 1950’s that we see most of his most influential works; Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and Hidden Fortress had heavy influences upon western cinema. Either directly, such as The Magnificent Seven, which took its story straight from Seven Samurai, or more subtly, such as the inspirations for Star Wars: A new Hope found within Hidden Fortress. By the beginning of the 1960’s then, Akira had already had all these films under his belt, along with many others, and was already an acclaimed director. However, after the box office failure of his first independent production team production, The Bad Sleep released in 1960, Akira returned from the modern setting to something much more traditional, and hence Yojimbo was born.

From the DVD Shelf: Timecrimes (or Los cronocrímenes)

A breath of fresh air for the Time-travel genre, this low budget Sci-fi thriller is certainly mind-bending, but in an extremely good way.

At first glance this film seems to have everything going against it. First of all it has a silly name, a poor translation of its original Spanish title, Los cronocrímenes? (I don’t know, I don’t speak Spanish!). Secondly it’s directed by someone you most likely haven’t ever heard of, Nacho Vigalondo, who sounds more like a bad Mexican super-hero than a great director (no offence Nacho!). While finally, at first glance it looks like a poor, low-budget, slasher-flick, with a main antagonist that resembles a trench coat wearing, scissor wielding, Mummy (If you see the DVD cover you’ll know what I’m talking about). Hence, though I had even been recommended this film by other websites and purchased it, it sat sadly on my shelf for months before I finally got round to watching it. Plainly though, this film is demonstrates clearly why you should never judge a book (or in this case DVD) by its cover, for what we have here is something both imaginative, exciting and extremely thought provoking.