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| The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi
Directed By: Takeshi Kitano Plot
Summary - Review 1 - Review
2 - CURRENT REVIEWS
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| Zatoichi is a 19th century blind nomad who makes his living as a gambler and masseur. However, behind this humble facade, he is a master swordsman gifted with a lightning-fast draw and breathtaking precision. While wandering, Zatoichi discovers a remote mountain village at the mercy of Ginzo, a ruthless gang-leader. Ginzo disposes of anyone who gets in his way, especially after hiring the mighty samurai ronin, Hattori, as a bodyguard. After a raucous night of gambling in town, Zatoichi encoutners a pair of geishas--as dangerous as they are beautiful--who've come to avenge their parents' murder. As the paths of these and other colorful characters intertwine, Ginzo's henchmen are soon after Zatoichi. With his legendary cane sword at his side, the stage is set for a riveting showdown. [TRAILER] If I am being honest, I must admit that I am not an expert on samurai films. However, what I have encountered as a novice has always left me wanting more. There is something about the intimacy and pageantry of sword fighting that is missing from the shoot-outs and car chases of mainstream American action movies, and something about the heroic stature of the samurais in these films that just isn’t to be found in a guy pulling the trigger of a gun. It was interesting then, in “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi,” to see this precise formula reversed and distorted. Unlike most samurai in the movies, who seem omnipotent and aware of what is going to happen long before it really happens, Zatoichi (Takeshi Kitano) is, as the title says, a blind hero. He sits idly, often with a dim smile on his face, his head leaning to one direction and his white hair projecting the image of a frail grandpa figure. But when his adversaries approach, determined to kill him, he leaps up with an unimaginable ferocity, taking down his foes with a swiftness and efficiency that shatters our perspective of who this old blind man really is. Researching the film, Zatoichi emerges as one of the most prolific and prominent figures of Japanese cinema. A hero of more than two dozen films in Japan - a greater icon than the James Bond of American cinema - this is the first time that Kitano has played Zatoichi, and it becomes clear that his reserved performance is different than those who have tackled the role prior. As with most samurai stories, the violence and the blood in this film is excessive, exploding onto the screen in quick bursts that are, at times, breathtaking in their savagery. However, the nature of Zatoichi as a hero and the nature of Kitano’s performance cause this majority of the film to work on an entirely different level. Because Zatoichi is not a towering hero, but a frail man who is more often defending himself than instigating, he earns a strange mix of our sympathy and reverence. We are sorry for him in one moment, as he is being picked on or as he limps across the landscape as a vulnerable and powerless spectacle, but then are wowed by his strength and come to anticipate and delight in his vengeance over characters who deserve what they have coming. Similarly, Kitano’s performance deprives us of an easy interpretation. For the first half of the film he is a kindly masseur who only lashes out when provoked. But later on at a card game, he attacks a crooked game manager even though his life is not in danger. As such, Zatoichi is never quite completely wholesome or malevolent, but an unpredictable collection of rage that we long to pin down. Complicating the film are other various subplots, most notably Hattori (Tadanobu Asano) who, as a bodyguard for a local boss, becomes the strangely endearing adversary of Zatoichi later in the film, and Yuko Daike (O-Kinu) and Daigoro Tachibana (O-Sei), two geishas who are pure in their desire to avenge their family’s murder, but ruthless in the way they stop at nothing to accomplish that goal. “Zatoichi” is not a perfect film, and this blind swordsman’s outbursts are, at times, more random than affecting. But I admire how nothing is formulaic or predictable, never relegating its story, characters, or tension to the tiresome black-and-white mentality that suffocates so many Hollywood thrillers.
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