Zatoichi

I am talking about the Takeshi Kitano versions here not the utterly awesome series of films that preceeded it...

Dismemberments

Geisha Assassins

A gang of evil crooks

A blind swordsman with a tack for spilling the claret

And a kickass song and dance number at the end...

Ah Zatoichi where would I be without you.

Samurai films are an oddity in that they have wild and varied periods of popularity and then disappear from cinema again.It is interesting charting Samurai films from the early 50s...were films like The Samurai Trilogy painted these old masters of feudal japan as almost legendary figures. The heroes of these films always rightous and always highly skilled.

In the 60s if a samurai in film was a good warrior he was either slightly loony (Sword of Doom)...or an anti establishment figure of sorts (Samurai Assassin, Samurai Rebellion).In the 70s had been stripped to their most base level. The chambara films fading in place of (very popular) brutal films such as Lone Wolf and Cub. It is interesting to note that post September 11th just as super hero films in the west have had a major resurgance so Samurai films in the orient have become the order of the day. Zatoichi being one of several spectacular new films focused on the ancient order.

What is interesting is that while some of the other films have adopted something of an odd style in creating samurai who bridge the ideals of the Tokugawa and the modern world, Zatoichi was just a straight balls to the wall old school samurai film...shot in a very modern way.Zatoichi follows a simple plot (it actually appears to be something of a conglomeration of several plots from the older movies) but in doing so crafts a richness in character not often seen in asian cinema. The central characters are largely people you care about, people who you sympathise with, respect, or at the very least find humourus. Which makes the battles far more substansial.

To say more about the plot would do the movie a disturbance, needless to say Zatoichi essentially stumbles across a particularly nasty gambling ring in town and cleans house.This is a movie built on the technical aspects, on the photography, ambience and mise en scene.From the delicatessen inspired opening walk, to the slightly slapstick but breathlessly paced fight in the gambling den, to the final wordless encounter between Zatoichi and his nemesis the film just exudes a sense of style and wonder of its own.





It pokes fun at some aspects of the old movies, one of the thugs lopping his friends arm off by accident in the first battle for example, but also seems to have a certain amount of respect and so while the battles may occasionally have a hint of comedy they are never anything less than enrapturing.In all Zatoichi is a samurai film only Kitano could make, I feel no other production would dare end the film with a tap dance number, and due to this is far more entertaining and accessible than the eulogising When the Last Sword is Drawn and ponderous Twilight Samurai which are its current stablemates.This is a film that is immensley rewarding even for those who have never seen a samurai film.

9/10