Search: Directed by Takashi Miike

Ultimately, what you see is what you get in 13 Assassins. Lots of blood and death and despicable cruelty.

Samurai revenge stories are not exactly thin on the ground and it takes something special to get attention today, but Blade Of The Immortal is just that.

Miike clearly has loads of ideas.

Good for fans, not so good for newcomers.

It comes across like a Japanese version of Performance, with all that studied oddity, sexual mutability, and narrative uncertainty.

This isn’t a big showdown in the style of recent superhero movies, but something far more organic and joyously deranged.

Small children would delight in this film, but most adults would be horrified by the thought of them seeing it.

Hara-kiri: Death Of A Samurai is in fact a lesson in artful restraint, slowly and deliberately building to its violent conclusion with a multi-layered narrative of flashback and counter-flashback.

A film of considerable depth, intelligence and accomplishment.

Despite the film’s exuberant silliness, Takashi is always meticulous about his craft.

Eminently watchable for those in the mood for simplistic fare who are prepared to suspend disbelief.

With arrows, in particular, Miike keeps one-upping himself, aided by his trademark commitment to going all the way with action sequences no matter how silly they may become.

While the three Twilight Zone-style movies - Dumplings, Cut and Box - are not without merit, they are far from satisfying or truly terrifying.