Zatoichi
(Buena Vista Region 1 NTSC DVD)
(2003)
review by Big McLargehuge

Takeshi Kitano’s Zatoichi is the 26 th feature length entry in the longest running series in Japanese history. Taking over for the first time for man who made the blind swordsman his literal alter ego, Shintaro Katsu, Takeshi not only directs but stars as the titular blind hero.

Following the story telling style and plot elements of the preceding 25 films in the series, Kitano’s Zatoichi begins with the blind swordsman wandering into a town on the verge of self destruction beneath a gaggle of warring gangs. Zatoichi has a reputation and, as if running from it, travels as “The Masseur”, a traveling blind masseuse.

The most powerful gang in town, the Ginzo’s, are nearly complete in their 10 year efforts to eliminate their competition in the small town where the film takes place. The Ginzo run the geisha trade and extort money and goods from the local merchants.

Also entering town are two geishas, a brother and sister team, the last survivors of the Ginzo’s first conquest ten years ago. They have made their living in the interrum between prostitution (the boy geisha) and robbing their clients (both geishas).

Zatoichi takes up with an older widower who is also a farmer, Aunt O-Ume (Michyo Ookusu) and begins gambling, and winning, in town. He befriends the woman’s nephew (the film’s comic relief) Shinkichi (Gadarukanaru Taka).

Meanwhile a ronin samurai and his girlfriend come to town. The Samurai Hattori (Tadanobu Asano) needs to work to earn money to get his girlfriend treatments of some disease that is never explained. She does not want him to work. He has, like Zatoichi, a dark past and reputation; his honor was taken in tournament when he was beaten savagely by an older samurai.

Much of the action of Zatoichi occurs in an Inn run by Pops and his much older friend “Tavern Pops”.

Zatoichi works well because it establishes a long story them peppers it with little vignettes that eventually add up to who the character are and why they are converging on the town. I already mentioned the two geisha assassins, but there are lots more. The Ginzo gang is made up of mysterious men that only a few people have seen and seeming in service to Lord Sakai.

In on specific little bit, Zatoichi is ambushed on the street by two thugs with a “special valuable sword”, and though they don’t really know how to use it, are sure that presenting the sword to Sakai will win them favor. One of them reluctantly attacks Zatoichi who cuts the tang of the sword off. Is Zatoichi that strong or was the sword cheap? It’s never explored, just left out there for us to ponder, and it’s one of the great little touches to the film.

Takeshi populates the film with other unusual characters as well, like the imbecile neighbor who runs around the town in a loincloth waving a naginata. He has no lines, and his presence adds to the mythic feel of the film.

Takeshi also works in four musical numbers, three subtle ones where the farmers ho as part of the soundtrack, another where boys tromp in mud as part of the soundtrack, and another where the village rebuilds Aunt O-Ume’s house. The next-to-final scene in the film is a long, bizarre, tap dancing number that could very easily have come from a 1930’s Hollywood musical. It’s so strangely out of place to see all of the films (still living) character doing time steps and other classical tap dancing maneuvers. I didn’t really get this scene, although I watched it more than a couple of times. Some will view it as a piece of weird fluff, like me, and others will find some deeper meaning.

The samurai genre hasn’t really taken off here in the states. Tom Cruise’s “Last Samurai” picture was largely viewed as Dances with Wolves with Japanese instead of Indians. So Zatoichi only enjoyed a limited release here, and to be honest, that’s probably to the film’s betterment. It is not a film that the general public will gravitate to, it’s too deep, it has too many facets, it’s an action movie, an honor picture, a musical… All of it with an air of the mythic.

Like virtually all Zatoichi films the various plot threads converge into a massive blood letting where justice is meted out and the town is restored to gang-free normalcy. I haven’t seen enough of the older films (they only run a few on IFC’s Samurai Saturday’s) so I can’t remember if the later films were bloody, but Kitano’s film sure it. He uses a lot of CGI blood and CGI swords (poking though people) but it’s never intrusive and I guess saves on the wardrobe cleaning they’d need otherwise.

The Mirimax DVD offers several cool options, an image gallery, a commentary track with Kitano, and my favorite, a long discussion with the martial arts coordinator and sword master consulting on the film. He discusses how this film differs from all other samurai films in that combat is not attack, defend, reply, but strike fast and kill in one blow. It makes it easy for Kitano to show both Zatoichi and Hattori dispatching multiple opponents without enormously long fight sequences. The abbreviations also emphasize the cheapness of village life and just how fatal it is to draw a live sword.