The lesson I learned after watching "13 Assassins", the new samurai film from Takashi Miike, is that I'm just not really a fan of samurai films. As I've noted in reviews for Thor and POTC: On Stranger Tides, I like my action scenes to be more than just brute force. And while "13 Assassins" is a very well made film, it is still a lot of "Groups of guys with swords running at a smaller group of guys with swords." There's a little cat & mouse but not too much because that's simply not the way of the samurai.

Despite by blase attitude toward the genre, the film is still one of the better movies that I've seen this year. I'm still trying to figure out where I should rank it because part of me was more entertained by Thor and Fast Five but I can readily admit that "13 Assassins" is a better movie than either of those two.

In the end, I would definitely recommend this film to anyone who enjoys the samurai or brute force ass-kicking genre. The end of the movie is about 45 minutes of sword play and at one point it felt a bit like "Black Hawk Down" in feudal Japan. But if you don't like that genre, don't be swayed by the positive reviews - it's pretty much a straight forward albeit well made action movie. I think a number of people in the theater I was in were expecting something different because of the positive reviews and they seemed a bit stunned/shell-shocked (or should it be sword shocked) after the movie.

Below is the trailer. This is one of those films that is pretty straightforward - if the trailer looks like something you might be into, check it out. If not, the film isn't much different than what the trailer promises.