13 Assassins remains firmly rooted in traditional storytelling, focusing on samurai honor, loyalty, and sacrifice. Characters are chosen and developed based on their roles, personalities, and skills rather than modern identity checklists. Diversity by identity is not shoehorned, and no single character feels artificially flawless or privileged due to demographics.

The film actually reinforces traditional values such as family honor, masculine virtues, hierarchy, and samurai ethics. There’s no bent toward mocking or subverting the heritage or cultural norms of feudal Japan, in fact, it reveres them, gritty warts and all.

While dissent is shown within the samurai, the moral compass is traditional authority and loyalty. Modern ideological themes are virtually absent, and alternatives to these values are not presented as straw men or mocked. It is a straight-laced historical drama, not an ideological diatribe.