Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins, Venice Film Festival 2010

Controversial Japanese director Takashi Miike is a very busy man these days.

13 Assassins

Two new projects for him this year, Zebraman 2 and something that’s already being described as “an epic samurai bloodbath” and the reason why we’re here today movie titled 13 Assassins.

When you’re that busy, then you definitely deserve to have a movie playing In Competition at the Venice Film Festival 2010.

The film is a remake of Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 black-and-white Japanese movie of the same name, and the story follows:

“Esteemed samurai Shinzaemon Shimada is secretly commissioned to terminate the evil Lord Naritsugu after his bloody rise to power. Assembling an elite group of samurai, Shinzaemon plots to ambush the Lord on his annual journey home from Edo.

The courageous samurai know it’s a suicide mission because the Lord is closely protected by a deadly entourage led by Shinzaemon’s nemesis, the ruthless Hanbei. To capture Lord Naritsugu, Shinzaemon and his skilled samurai transform a mountain village into an intricate death trap.

But when the Lord finally arrives, the assassins discover they are outnumbered fifteen to one. The day has come for our 13 fearless assassins to face death in a monumental battle of fiery explosions, showers of arrows and bloody showdowns of clashing swords. “

13 Assassins stars Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Hiroki Matsukata and Kazuki Namioka and has a release date across Japan on the 25th september 2010.

Executive producers are Toshiaki Nakazawa (producer of Departures, 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film) Sedic International (Japan), Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor, Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, Takeshi Kitano’s Brother) RPC Recorded Picture Company (UK), Takashi Hirajo – TV Asahi Corporation.

We wish them good luck!