This story updates an early post with the exclusive new UK trailer for 13 Assassins. There is no escape from the samurai mayhem...
Takashi Miike has been beloved of cult audiences for years, but it looks as it he might have a bona-fide breakout international hit on his hands if this new UK trailer for 13 Assassins is anything to go by.
Known for mad horror (Audition), extreme violence (Ichi the Killer), and working very quickly on the cheap, Miike seems here to have turned in a spectacular historical action epic. Still plenty of blood and killing though, and a murdered woman in the trailer's opening seconds, so par for the Miike course in some ways.
13 Assassins is a remake of the 1963 Eiichi Kudo film, in which the baker's dozen samurai take on a sadistic warlord against - what else? - insurmountable odds. It stars Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Hiroki Matsukata and Kazuki Namioka, and was executive-produced by Britain's own Jeremy Thomas, who's previously been successful at exporting the likes of Takeshi Kitano and Bertolucci's The Last Emperor.
The film has been picking up positive attention on the worldwide festival circuit (Empire**'s Damon Wise saw it in Venice), and is out in the UK on May 6. Keanu Reeves, Carl Erik Rinsch, 47 Ronin: the gauntlet is thrown. Head over to Apple Trailers for the extended version in the US trailer.