zatoichi

zatoichi the last was released in 2010, and it is one pitiful end to a great character...zatoichi was a series of tv movies in japan that ran mostly in the 60's through early 70's starring katsu shintaro (final movie with him portraying the character was in 1989)...ichi is a blind masseur who travels around japan going from town to town, making a living by giving massages and gambling, but has a knack for getting himself involved with the yakuza in the towns that he visits...luckily, he is also a master swordsman with almost superhuman senses and uses a cane sword...people might remember the terrible movie, blind fury, with rutger hauer, which is based on the zatoichi series


each movie is formulaic...zatoichi enters a town and usually there is some injustice that is happening to the town folk by the local yakuza boss who is in charge...zatoichi rights these wrongs by killing hordes of yakuza with his lightning fast blade and ends with a final showdown the with yakuza boss and his top yojimbo...nothing too special about the story, but it is katsu shintaro's portrayal of zatoichi as a gruff but very likable and humorous blind killing machine that has made the series so popular even today...unfortunately, none of the newer versions zatoichi are as good...there have been 3 modern version...zatoichi with beat takeshi, ichi with haruka ayase, and finally the worst one, zatoichi the last with shingo katori


shingo katori was poor casting...not only does he not look right for the part, but seemed to have never done any training with a sword before shooting...the story didn't make much sense and the action was slow...he's basically what i would have looked like if i closed my eyes and swung a cane sword around

ichi was an interesting twist to the franchise with the story being about a blind female swordmaster, searching for her master and possibly father, who may have been zatoichi...it is never clear from the movie...just that she had the same sword style...at first, i thought it was another poor casting job, since haruka ayase is more fit to be in a bikini than in grubby begger clothes fighting yakuza, but she did a decent job...the story itself was poor, and she didn't have many lines...they could have done so much more with the story

zatoichi with beat takeshi is probably the best modern version...most might know him from his violent yakuza movies...you might also recognize someone else in the videos below

given his violent movies, he does a much better with the action scenes with zatoichi, but can't quite capture the humanity that katsu shintaro had...also, the character didn't have much dialogue which is odd, because the original zatoichi talked often even just to himself...

i hope they make another one with a more fitting end for zatoichi...you can check out some of the original ones on hulu


http://www.hulu.com/zatoichi-the-blind-swordsman