‘11 Rebels’: Tokyo Review

Dir: Shiraishi Kazuya. Japan. 2024. 155 minutes.

A unapologetically old-school Samurai motion rampage, 11 Rebels takes place in opposition to the backdrop of Japan’s Boshin Struggle in 1868, during which the New Imperial Military, loyal to the Imperial Court docket, confronted up in opposition to Samurai ‘bandits’ combating within the title of the Shogunate. Many pages price of exposition fail to make clear the plot, a 3-D chess recreation of conflicting pursuits, juggled loyalties and damaged oaths. But it surely’s a robustly entertaining romp, full of swordplay, mass decapitations and improvised explosives.

A small military of extremely marketable heart-throb actors toplined by Yamada Takayuki and Nakano Taiga

The newest movie from Shiraishi Kazuya (The Blood Of Wolves, The Satan’s Path), 11 Rebels was tailored from an unproduced screenplay by the late Kazuo Kasahara (greatest recognized for yakuza thrillers akin to Battles With out Honor and Humanity). It premieres because the opening movie of the Tokyo Movie Pageant, forward of a home launch by way of Toei on November 1st, the place the presence within the solid of a small military of extremely marketable heart-throb actors (toplined by Yamada Takayuki and Nakano Taiga) ought to assist its prospects. The movie has already bought prematurely of its premiere to Nicely Go USA for North America and Splendid Movie for German-speaking territories.

To purchase time and a strategic benefit in opposition to the New Imperial Military, the Shibata clan dispatches a motley crew of 11 males – a handful of Samurai and a vibrant assortment of criminals combating to earn a pardon for his or her numerous crimes – to defend a fort. Unbeknowns to them, the younger chief of the Shibata Area, a petulant brat with greater than a contact of the Joffrey Baratheons about him, is in the end planning to aspect with the Imperial forces. 

It’s definitely stirring stuff, with its themes of redemption and the clawing again of honour for the least honourable dregs of society. However the movie does lean into themes of feminine victimhood and demonstrates some pretty antediluvian attitudes in the direction of incapacity, an element which may not endear it to worldwide audiences.

A propulsive opening sequence reveals Masa (Yamada Takayuki), a lowly labourer, sprinting by way of the city, shoving hapless buyers out of his approach. He hurries to consolation his deaf spouse, who has been raped by a drunken samurai. Crazed with anger, Masa hunts down the person and kills him. He’s swiftly captured and sentenced to loss of life, however a stranger – a developmentally disabled teen referred to as Noro (Takara Sakumoto) who’s satisfied that Masa is his brother – involves his rescue, chopping the ropes that bind him. Masa is recaptured however his execution is stayed by the chance to defend the fort alongside together with his fellow prisoners.

Those that survive, they’re informed, might be pardoned. But when even certainly one of them tries to flee, the deal is off for all of them. And anybody who decides to not take the supply might be moved to the neighbouring cell, the place the typhoid victims are housed.

They’re a combined bunch, these 11 rebels. One is behind bars for dishonest at cube, one is a priest with a style for younger ladies. One prisoner was locked up for attempting to depart Japan to be able to examine drugs in Russia. One other was arrested for merely being too good-looking and catching the attention of the spouse of a samurai. On the different finish of the spectrum is a bruising monster of a person nicknamed ’Lower ’em down’, on account of his fondness for slaughtering individuals and his ever-rising physique depend. An inscrutable aged man is given no backstory in anyway till the final potential second, however his talent as a swordsman is a touch to his origins. And there’s a lady, Natsu (Sayashi Riho), imprisoned for arson after torching the home of the person who killed her child.

For essentially the most half, the characters are thumbnail sketches, outlined by their crimes and a persona quirk if we’re fortunate. However then the purpose of the movie is just not its nuance, however moderately the explosive and violent prolonged motion sequences. And on that stage the movie delivers: it’s a handsomely mounted manufacturing that boasts stable work from the design departments and offers quite a lot of gorgeously rendered examples of Nineteenth-century Japanese structure onto which the copious blood is shed.