13 Assassins

Japanese auteur Takashi Miike has been making movies for years, but his 13 Assassins seems like a new chapter in his long and varied career. Miike is probably best known as a cult figure, having directed Audition (which is one of the greatest horror movies of all time), and gross-out classics like Visitor Q and Ichi the Killer. 13 Assassins has him making a classic samurai tale of 13 men who must stop a warlord and his 200 flunkies. Check out our interview…

Influence

This was based on an Eiichi Kudo film, were you a fan of his work?

Takashi Miike: As for director Kudo, I had worked with him once on a television series as an assistant director, so I knew who he was and how much of an independent individual – what a great character he was, but as for the original 13 Assassins, it’s such an old work, and for people under the age of sixty, they don’t really know it. The movie came out when I was three years old, but it’s always been a popular title.

The problem for Americans is we know Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Lone Wolf and Cub. This is a more stately film, more in line with those films than some of your earlier works. Were you influence by some of the Japanese masters while making this?

TM: Obviously I was influenced – you can’t help but be influenced by these kinds of movies – but not directly in any attempt to reference any of those. I saw Kurosawa’s and Yasujirô Ozu’s films again when they were released again on Blu-ray. But I think the proper way to make movies is not to reference movies when you’re making them. The same way you make a movie is the same way you watch a movie, you’re a part of the audience, so if you don’t enjoy the movie while you’re making it the audience won’t enjoy it as well. And you need to be excited about the movie while you make it – so excited that you let things flow, which means letting whatever’s influenced you up to that point come in. But it’s not a direct attempt to reference something.