13 Assassins(十三人の刺客)

San Francisco Chronicle by

The well-crafted 13 Assassins, a remake of a 1960s samurai film, is one of his best; it shows that Takashi could be a great filmmaker if he'd only slow down.

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

Right makes might in Takashi Miike's excellent-and exceedingly violent-remake of a 1966 Japanese classic by Eiichi Kudo.

Time Out by Joshua Rothkopf

A classically structured rampage that bears serious comparison to the definitive greats of Akira Kurosawa, 13 Assassins will floor connoisseurs of action, mood and the dignity of a pissed-off scowl.

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

Few filmmakers juxtapose cruelty and beauty as audaciously as Japan's Takashi Miike. A master director with great style and panache, Miike's latest, 13 Assassins, is a classic samurai movie, right up there among the finest in the genre.

Variety by Leslie Felperin

This at first slow-moving and then wildly kinetic actioner possesses a cool classicism that will appeal to offshore audiences as well as those at home.

The New York Times by Manohla Dargis

A stirring, unexpectedly moving story of love and blood.

Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov

It's also a deeply moral antiwar film, if one chooses to view it that way.

Village Voice by Nick Pinkerton

Perhaps something important was spirited away with the 20 minutes of footage shorn for this U.S. release, but the combatants are scarcely distinguishable here even before disappearing under layers of mud and guts.

Orlando Sentinel by Roger Moore

13 Assassins is entirely too long and too talky. But the cat-and-mouse game of strategy, figuring out when and where to ambush the evil overlord's entourage, is fascinating.

Movieline by Stephanie Zacharek

The picture does, in places, feel like an unspoken homage to Kurosawa, though it's certainly its own distinct creation. But I wonder if it more closely resembles another end-of-an-era picture, Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch."