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19th century Japan: Zatoichi (Takeshi Kitano), the blind masseur &
master swordsman, arrives at a village plagued by gangwars &
protection money rackets. Wanting nothing but to be left in peace &
to do some gambling as a pastime (he always wins, he soon finds shelter
at the house of a poor farmwoman whonm he helped, & soon finds
associates in form of a somewhat dim-witted gambler and 2 geishas (one
of them actually a man in disguise) wanting to avenge the murder of
their parents. But he also finds a mortal enemy in form of ronin
Tadanobu Asano, the only swordsman with fighting skills matching his
own, & is thus sucked into the turfwars of the city - a war which he
in the end of course wins, slaying almost anybody remotely associated with the
fighting gangs, & of course ronin Tadanobu Asano, too. The avenging geishas
also get their revenge, by the way.
As the director of this retelling of the Zatoichi saga is
Takeshi Kitano, it is of course every bit as bloody as you would expect
from a Japanese Chambara-movie, but Kitano would also show his cinematic
eye with some beautifully shot & choreographed scenes (& I don't
mean the fight scenes, which are rather standard), culminating in a big
musical number (!) in the end. Also, Kitano's other career as
a comedian would shine through in some great nonsense scenes ever
so often interrupting the rather somber onscreen goings-on.
For the actor Kitano, Zatoichi rather seems a logical continuation of
much of the characters he portrayed in his earlier movies, who were very
often stoic & violent lone wolf characters in the first place - even
though shades of legendary Zatoichi-series
starring Shintaro Katsu (playing the
character in 25 movies from 1962 to 1973, a tv-series & a revival movie in 1988,
directed by himself) are shining through.
In all, despite travelling much-treaded grounds, a great auteur-movie from Takeshi Kitano (although his
trademark seaside-scenes are completely absent here), & an ironic
but not insulting look at chambara-cinema. Zatoichi-purists will
love to hate this movie though !
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