11 Rebels – first-look review

Pro­lif­ic Japan­ese screen­writer Kazuo Kasa­hara – best known for his asso­ci­a­tion with the yakuza films of the 70s and 80s – first wrote the script for 11 Rebels some 60 years ago, focus­ing on the Japan­ese Civ­il War of 1868 – 69 (The Boshin War) in which the mil­i­tary gov­ern­ment were chal­lenged by a coali­tion of forces sid­ing with the emper­or. It’s a peri­od of Japan­ese his­to­ry which has proven gen­er­al­ly ripe for artis­tic inter­pre­ta­tion, of which Edward Zwick’s The Last Samu­rai is like­ly to be most West­ern­ers’ point of entry. Some 22 years after Kasahara’s death, Kazuya Shi­raishi – him­self a Japan­ese crime film­mak­er – has inher­it­ed the 11 Rebels script, and brought the samu­rai sto­ry to life in suit­ably bloody fashion.

Yet it’s not the samu­rai who are the heart of this rous­ing action ensem­ble. Instead, it’s a ​“sui­cide squad” of 10 con­victs, who are giv­en the chance to earn their free­dom by defend­ing a local fort for the Shin­ba­ta samu­rai. Among their num­ber are a mys­te­ri­ous elder­ly man, a female arson­ist, a lech­er­ous monk, a mass mur­der­er, a card sharp, an aspir­ing doc­tor who tried to run away to Rus­sia, and a man whose only crime was being ​“too hand­some” (there­by lead­ing to an affair with a samurai’s wife) but the focus of the action is Masa (Yama­da Takayu­ki), a heav­i­ly tat­tooed labour­er who was sen­tenced to death for mur­der­ing the samu­rai who raped his wife. There’s also the mat­ter of Noro (Takara Saku­mo­to), who has an intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and claims to be Masa’s lit­tle broth­er despite Masa’s insis­tence they are not relat­ed. Noro idolis­es Masa, who has lit­tle time for him – he also has no inter­est in help­ing the Shin­ba­ta and only wish­es to get back to his wife, lead­ing to ten­sions between him and the rest of the group as it is revealed if one of them deserts, they will all be denied their pardon.

Back­sto­ry and char­ac­ter devel­op­ment are kept at a min­i­mum, instead mak­ing way for plen­ty of fight­ing, explo­sions and gory spe­cial effects. The fight chore­og­ra­phy is impres­sive if not a lit­tle repet­i­tive, but the spe­cial effects team have real­ly pulled out all the stops. Nary a sword­fight goes by with­out some­one los­ing a limb or hav­ing a few holes put in them, and the squib bud­get along for 11 Rebels must have been impres­sive. Shi­raishi does seem keen to empha­sise the bru­tal­i­ty of war, which seems notable con­sid­er­ing the com­mon mis­con­cep­tion of the Boshin War as a ​“blood­less rev­o­lu­tion”. It’s cer­tain­ly not for the faint of heart, but there’s an almost car­toon­ish lev­el of gore at times, par­tic­u­lar­ly once Noro’s affin­i­ty for cre­at­ing explo­sives is discovered.

It’s unclear how much work – if any – Shi­raishi did to mod­ernise Kasahra’s script, but cer­tain­ly some of it seems out­dat­ed. The treat­ment of Noro’s dis­abil­i­ty and the pal­try roles giv­en to the film’s few female char­ac­ters are evi­dence that there was absolute­ly room for a fresh take on the samu­rai genre, and at times 11 Rebels does feel old-fash­ioned in its sen­si­bil­i­ties. It could also deal with a swift chop in the edit suite too, rolling in at 2 and a half hours and strug­gling to keep up. Despite the thin char­ac­ter­i­sa­tions of its mot­ley crew and con­stant toing and fro­ing between the fort and the local seat of pow­er where much schem­ing is tak­ing place, 11 Rebels does sat­is­fy a cer­tain appetite for destruc­tion, end­ing on a pleas­ing­ly down­er note which runs anti­thet­i­cal to any lin­ger­ing myths about the hon­our of the samu­rai warrior.