Compiled by Anealla Safdar

Tonight marks something of a double-edged (samurai) sword. We’re toasting the success of an incredibly successful Japanese film series, and commiserating its end.

On 29 March, in partnership with Qatar Museums Authority and the Japanese Embassy, we started to showcase acclaimed works from Japan’s rich and diverse cinematic traditions in celebration of Qatar Japan 2012 – a cultural, year-long initiative celebrating 40 years of diplomatic relations. Our box office has recorded the sale of more than 2,000 tickets in total.

Including the first film, director Yojiro Takita’s Academy Award winning ‘Departures’ or ‘Okuribito’, we’ve shown six so far. Tonight’s finale marks the seventh – cult director Takashi Miike’s ’13 Assassins’ or ‘Jûsan-nin no Shikaku’. It tells the story of an elite samurai group secretly enlisted to bring down a sadistic feudal lord to prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war torn future.

Without spoilers, here are 13 facts about the samurai epic:

1. Toshiaki Nakazawa produced ’13 Assassins’. He also produced ‘Departures’.

2. The New York Times said the film is ‘a stirring, unexpectedly moving story of love and blood.’

3. Director Takashi Miike, aged 52, is little over 5 ft 4.

4. But who cares? He’s directed 89 titles, acted in 18 and written three.

Takashi Miike

5. The film is a remake of late director Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 black-and-white Japanese film of the same name.

6. Takashi Miike was three years old when the original came out.

7. ‘I don’t think about the audience, I don’t think about what makes them happy, because there’s no way for me to know,’ Miike is reported to have said.

8. But be warned, he also said: ‘I just don’t understand people who would walk out on a movie.’

9. Actor Kōji Yakusho, 56, stars as the lead assassin. He also played the lead in ‘Shall We Dance’ – a Japanese film which inspired a dance craze in the country and a Hollywood remake starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez.

10. The film’s original running time is 141 minutes. The international cut is 126 minutes.

11. ’13 Assassins’ was nominated for Best Film at this year’s 34th Japanese Academy Prize.

12. The film premiered at the 2010 Venice Film Festival.

13. Chicago Times’ Roger Ebert, the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, included the film in his ‘Best Films of 2011’ list.

To attend tonight or either of tomorrow’s screenings at the Museum of Islamic Art, you can buy tickets online.