Action and adventure filmsReviewBehind the J-poppy storylines of this cartoonish samurai blockbuster gleams a well-shot swordplay spectacularWatch the trailer for Rurouni Kenshin Warner Brothers/Studio SwanIn 19th-century Japan, swordsman Kenshin (Takeru Satoh) wanders the land, eating sweets and defending maidens with a special blade that's only sharp on the inside edge so he cannot kill: a pledge to atone for his wartime past as the fearsome Battosai, a murderous slaughterer of samurai.

Ota Benga (second from left) and fellow countrymen at the St Louis World’s Fair, 1904 Photograph: University of South CarolinaOta Benga (second from left) and fellow countrymen at the St Louis World’s Fair, 1904 Photograph: University of South CarolinaThe long readRaceIn 1904, Ota Benga was kidnapped from Congo and taken to the US, where he was exhibited with monkeys. His appalling story reveals the roots of a racial prejudice that still haunts us

UK news This article is more than 9 months old‘Eunuch maker’ appears in London court on GBH chargesThis article is more than 9 months oldMarius Gustavson is accused of broadcasting castration footage on website in wide-ranging conspiracy A man accused of carrying out castrations on other men and broadcasting the footage on his “eunuch maker” website has appeared in court. Marius Gustavson, 45, along with eight others, is alleged to have performed extreme body modifications, including the removal of penises and testicles.

OpinionHealth This article is more than 12 years oldIt's the same old game. Get your rosaries off my ovaries, as we used to sayThis article is more than 12 years oldSuzanne MooreFor all the liberal language, independent counselling is just an underhanded anti-abortion tacticI do remember leaving the party very fast. I must have been about 11 and in a haze, looking through magazines while the women ooohed and aaahed over plastic boxes.

Stella Moris with sons Gabriel and Max: ‘I tell them there are some people who don’t want Daddy to come home.’ Photograph: Harry Borden/The GuardianStella Moris with sons Gabriel and Max: ‘I tell them there are some people who don’t want Daddy to come home.’ Photograph: Harry Borden/The GuardianFamilyWhat’s it like raising two boys when their father is wanted by the US? The partner of the WikiLeaks founder tells her story

Top 10sFictionThe top 10 hotel novelsFrom Robert Bloch's Psycho to Chekhov's Lady With the Dog, Mark Watson explores the magnetism of hotels for novelists Read more writers' top 10s The hotel is a seductive setting for a writer. It houses a wide spectrum of people who do not know each other, yet who spend nights under the same roof and are affected by one another's behaviour in ways they may not be conscious of: they hear each other's bathwater draining away, they catch snippets of conversations in the lifts.

ShortcutsAstronomyIn the next week, our planet will experience one near miss and one impact. What else is heading our way? Every day, Earth is hit by something from space. It is a sobering thought that we live on the celestial equivalent of a dartboard, especially since we are taught that the dinosaurs were wiped out by the impact of a giant asteroid 65m years ago. Astronomers at the European Space Agency’s Near Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC), in Frascati, Italy, place objects that show even the slightest hint of striking our planet in the next century on a risk list, which currently contains 524 objects.

A teenage tradition: quinceañera celebrations in Cuba – in pictures Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email The quinceañera, the 15th birthday rite of passage into womanhood, is widely celebrated in Latino culture. The ostentatious display of wealth at these events is important, even in communist Cuba. The photographer Diana Markosian has documented the tradition in her Over the Rainbow project, which has been awarded the third Elliott Erwitt Havana Club 7 Fellowship.

StageReviewHampstead theatre, London Rajiv Joseph’s ambitious three-hour drama features an outstanding performance from David Birrell It is tough luck on Rajiv Joseph that his play, first seen in Houston in 2017, opens in the same week as an adaptation of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, in London. Both works focus on what one of Joseph’s characters calls “the cruel gaze of communism”. Where Grossman’s work stirs the heart, Joseph’s often feels like an intricate riddle that the audience has to solve over the course of three hours.

ExperienceMafia'I knew the mafia were accused of crimes, from murder to racketeering, but I was too young to understand what it meant'My first inkling that my family was different came when I was six and found a gun hidden under my dad's bed. I knew he'd served in Vietnam and assumed it was from then. I even told friends how proud I felt: my father, the brave soldier. A teacher overheard me talking about the gun and quietly mentioned it to my parents.