#Hashbrowns

For anyone who doesn’t know, Takashi Miike is the hardest working man in Japanese Cinema, producing works in varying extreme styles. One of his more recent forays into theaters (which for anyone reading in Columbia, is currently playing at the Ragtag), 13 Assassins, is possibly the best L5R campaign ever committed to celluloid.

While I am avoiding spoilers, depending on your level of willful ignorance, some may follow, so be warned.

There is a foul villain, in the waining days of the Tokugawa era, there exists the sort of sadistic monster that only exist in Takashi Miike films, and a small band of committed and skillful samurai commit themselves to slaying this creep.

After the initial outlay establishing the villain is a villain for villains (in case you might feel sympathy for the guy being targeted by the titular Assassins) there is very little of Miike’s signature stylized violence, and instead we get a patient, paced, Kurosawa-esque travelling series along with quite a bit of plotting and preparation.

What this results in is a film made of overlapping films: a heist film more deserving of the title than Oceans 12 was, a slightly comedic brotherly road film on the order of Stand By Me (but with less Wil Wheaton)  followed by one of the better executions of a Chambara film in my recent experience.

I rarely think any film needs to be seen by everyone. But it does deserve some mention.

Transformers 3  cost just short of 200 million dollars. 13 Assassins cost roughly 6 million.

That money would be much better making 33 films to equal 13 Assassins. And knowing Miike, he could have those 33 finished inside of  5 years.

20 some odd years ago, Wealthy Logging Industrialist Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha were gunned down outside the Vancouver Opera House. Known as Tom and Midge, they were beloved pillars of the community. Their son, Bruce, better known as “Young Dave” has sworn to honor their memory. He has dedicated a trust fund in their honor with a mandate to work toward the reduction and elimination of Cholera in the Third World.

Young Dave is widely considered the most eligible bachelor in the province; wealthy, intelligent and handsome with the training of an Olympic athlete, holding a Bronze for Skeleton from the Torino games. Despite all this, he has never married, declaring that he is married to his work. While he does hold the controlling interest of Wayne Industries, his primary work is that of honoring his parents, fighting crime as a Corporal in the RCMP.

Fucking Canadians.

Rapture people, I totally feel for you. You really don’t need anyone making fun of you.

Normally, I’d be inclined to sanctimoniousness in the face of being completely right about something, especially something where you are telling me to my face that you are better than me, and that for this reason I deserve to die horribly at the hands of Satan himself.

But that’s not where you are right now. Right now, far more important to you that I and the countless others like me were right was that you were wrong. Something you believed, really and truly, with all your heart, was false. You had accepted it on faith. Some of you took dramatic steps acting on this certainty you had for the end of your mortal life; emptying bank accounts, quitting jobs, in some cases giving away or putting down family pets. There’s another set of people who go through the same actions: Suicides.

You have lived your life with the meaning hinging on what you were certain would be this one day and now that’s gone, leaving nothing but a hole. You’ve endured an absolute disappointment. For this, you have my sympathy.

Please do not go back to waiting for the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It never arrives.