13 Assassins

Hi!  It's nice to meet you.  As you probably know, I'm 13 Assassins, the 2011 film by Takashi Miike. I've really been looking forward to getting to know you, but before we get started, I can see there's one question you've been dying to ask me: "are you just f---ing around?"  Look, I get it.  That's a reasonable question.  After all, you might not be too familiar with movies like me, and if you're not, it makes it tough to commit to a whole indoor trainer session with just the two of us for company.  So to put your mind at ease, let me answer your question with a question:  does this look like I'm f---ing around?

Just so you understand, that's my very first scene.  That's how I introduce myself to people.  So I hope there won't be any more talk of whether I'm f---ing around or not.  Should be pretty clear now.

Sorry if that came across defensive.  It's just that it's hard meeting new people, you know?  Sometimes I'm not what they expected and they wind up disappointed.  I understand.  But spend a little time with me and I think you'll find we can have a lot of fun together.

What?  You've heard that I'm really intense?  Well, yes, in a certain sense, I am.  After all, I'm a story about some aging samurai who join forces to prevent the ascendance of a sadistic young nobleman--

I'm sorry, what?  What do you mean, "like Joffrey on Game of Thrones?"  No, not like that.  Not unless that little princeling amuses himself by amputating the limbs of his rape victims, leaving them forced to use a brush in their teeth to draw the kanji characters for "TOTAL MASSACRE" in order to explain what happened to them.

OK, I can see where I get this reputation for being pretty intense.  I mean, I'm funny sometimes, too, but mostly intense.  Anyway!  Point is that the samurai get together to stop the nobleman and his army from going to join the shogun's council and starting up a new era of warfare.  There's a little irony there, what with the samurai complaining that they feel like they're kind of worthless in a time of peace, and they find some new meaning in going off to fight this guy.  Plus there's some camaraderie and getting-to-know-you stuff as they recruit the bros they need to make up their full squad of 13. 

I have to say that if I have a weakness, it's that I don't really give you that much meat on the bones of those various samurai bros.  It's tough to be Ocean's Eleventh unless you're Carl Reiner, or to be the Twelfth Angriest Man unless you're Jack Lemmon.  My bros don't quite have that star power.  Fair.  But there's enough there so you can feel stoked when they're winning and sad when they're getting picked off (don't even talk to me about spoiler alerts; have you seen a samurai movie?  It's a miracle anyone survives).  I also have a lag in the middle where there's some light philosophy and politics, but don't worry.  Just when you're starting to wonder if there's a little too much of that, I'll get to the good stuff.  You'll know it's coming when...

Well, I guess that would be a spoiler, so I'll hold off.  Let's just say that you'll finally have a chance to use a sentence that involves the words "flaming," "wild boar," and "stampede."

One other thing:  I know that subtitles isn't always a great characteristic in a trainer movie, but I feel like I do pretty well with it.  You get just the actual spoken words, not much of the <sound effect> type stuff.  I skipped that since I thought it would get pretty numbing just reading things like <gurgles> <gasping for breath> <entrails splash> over and over, especially in my second half.  At the end of the day, I'm a visual film.

So what kind of workout should we do together?  Let's take the advice of one of my characters: "he who values his life dies a dog's death."   OK, fine, I'll own it:  I'm intense!  If you're intense too, we'll get along.  Allow for a nice ten-minute cooldown at the end, though, because I definitely need some too.  You'll understand why when we get there.  I'm about 1:55 long, so plan your workout to be done with the hard stuff at 1:45 and then we can take a nice leisurely walk around and reflect on our journey together.

If you like Japanese aesthetics, violent action scenes that have real weight, and just enough story to hold things together, then I think we'll get along just fine.  You can find me streaming on Netflix.