i must have seen a different film!!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A 45 min. straight showdown sequence of swords in bloody battle. 'Nuff said.

Kotaya is actually some kind of mountain god or smt, Upashi his loving one maybe the wife of the river god, he slept with her and got hanged on the tree for a lesson instead of being killed, with a god origin, Kotaya seems to be have an extraordinary physical strength which he had demonstrated in the battle and was being unable to killed

After a history of feudal violence, peace finally reigns over Japan, but the calm is threatened by the growing power of the Shogun's sadistic half-brother Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), who rapes and murders at will, his evil deeds hushed up by the authorities. Shogunate adviser Sir Doi (Mikijirô Hira) recognises the danger that Naritsugu poses and hires samurai Shinzaemon (Kôji Yakusho) to assemble a team of assassins to take care of the problem.Prolific director Takashi Miike is best known for his bizarre and gory cult movies, including shocking horror Audition, ultra-violent live-action manga Ichi the Killer, and taboo-busting familial drama Visitor Q; for 13 Assassins, he turns his hand to the classical samurai genre, delivering a two-hour-plus epic of two very distinct halves.The first half establishes the plot and introduces its characters; the pacing is slow and deliberate with lots of dialogue. Fans of the director's more uninhibited movies might find the going a little tough at times, although Miike does at least see fit to include a couple of typically warped scenes amidst the chit-chat (Naritsugu using a defenceless family for target practise, and a limbless woman with her tongue removed—another victim of Naritsugu's perverted ways—writhing helplessly on the floor).The latter half of the film picks up the pace, as the seriously outnumbered samurai prepare booby traps for the enemy in a village, using the element of surprise to help them cut a swathe through countless soldiers in order to complete their mission. The violence is well choreographed and energetic, but with the final battle consisting of 40 minutes or more of non-stop sword-slashing, and the graphic gore kept to a minimum, I found it to be a little on the repetitive side. As unrealistic as it might be, I would have preferred to have seen Miike employ some old-school Lone Wolf and Cub-style arterial spray and a variety of severed appendages to prevent monotony from setting in.6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb. Not at all bad, but a little too conventional to be amongst my favourite Miike movies.

I have found the film just OK. For my tastes it is really too old school. Directing/filming fights in this way, is for me prehistory. I do not like either films where all is special effects. But here all is just confused and flat. So many people fighting, no breaks, no special angles, direction is really straight and old school. There are moments that in my opinion are even ridiculous. I cannot understand how this film got to get 7,6 rating here and 96% in Rottentomatoes! That's just extremely exager-rated. Anyway, the acting is OK, and in the fights (which are concentrated in the last third of the movie) there are some good moments. But honestly I felt absolutely nothing watching this film. No tension, no emotion, no excitement, no epic feeling. And the characters gave me also absolutely nothing. The film is written and directed and shooted in a way that I felt just a distant observer of a flat scene.