Release Date: July 23, 2004 (limited)
Studio: Miramax Films
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Screenwriter: Takeshi Kitano
Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Michiyo Ogusu, Taka Gatarukanaru, Yûko Daike, Saburo Ishikura, Tadanobu Asano, Akira Emoto, Hideboh, Ittoku Kishibe, Yui Natsukawa
Genre: Action, Comedy
MPAA Rating: R (for strong stylized bloody violence)
Official Website: Justice-is-Blind.com

Plot Summary: 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 encounters a pair of geishas -- as dangerous as they are beautiful -- who've come to avenge their parents' murder at the hands of Ginzo. 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.

Over the past decade Hollywood has started to ingratiate the talents of the Far East, from the delights of John Woo to the pleasures of Tsui Hark, the influence has even led American film’s prodigal son Tom Cruise to create his own samurai flick in the form of The Last Samurai.

Zaitocihi is more rural and rustic in its tone than the popularised vulgarity of Tom Cruise’s far-east epic, as inspiration for this tale of warring samurai’s comes from a short story written by Kan Shimozawa. The one man entertainment industry of Japan, Beat Takeshi, stars as the title character who is known to most as a mild mannered blind masseur, but underestimating this masseuse leads to the loss of limbs and pints of blood.

This is not to say that this film can be delegated to the realms of exploitation as the presence of director Takeshi Katano (known onscreen as Beat Takeshi) elevates this film above the Kill Bill’s and Crouching Tiger’s to a level of mythic stature, mixed with the directors’ macabre and quirky sense of humour.

The narrative of film seems to be stir-fried together from Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, which sees warring factions of samurai fight for supremacy, and Yojimbo to a lesser extent. Also thrown in for good measure are elements of the protagonist from Shogun Assassin, who simply journey’s from one environment to the next despatching attacks much as the masseur does in this film.

In the middle of these warring factions are two geishas (although one is actually a man) seeking revenge for the murder of their parents - who were killed by one of the gang bosses known as Ginzo (Ittoku Kishibe). It is interesting that in one scene Kitano shows the childhood of the geishas and how the transvestism originated in the character of Osei (Daigoro Tachibana).

As a child Osei is abused for money in order to keep a roof over their heads. This is one of the films most touching scenes as the siblings comfort each other after Osei is abused for the first time, recalling a passage from Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment where Katerina Ivanova gives up her virginity for the sake of her family.

But this film is a million miles away from 18^th century gloom of Dostoyevsky’s text, as Kitano keeps the Nintendo generation happy with gloriously over-the-top looking C.G.I blood. The fight scenes are frequent and on the odd occasion a little gratuitous, while at the same time thrilling using David Bordwell’s ‘pause-action-pause’ pattern to punctuate the action.

Kitano has yet to be defined as an auteur as his breadth of work reaches far beyond the bounds of recognisable conventionality. Still, I would like to suggest two features of this work that distance this film from some of his urban-gangster thrillers. Firstly, scenes in the film are populated with meditative moments straight out of Ozu’s Tokyo Story and at points the director spaces his actors like statues, filling the frame beautifully - drawing parallels with Sergio Leone’s operatic western Once Upon A Time In The West.

Fans of Quentin Tarintino should hope that the director absorbs this minor-masterpiece before embarking on the third part of his Kill Bill series and fans of Kintano will beg him to keep producing work of this quality as he is both the Yin and the Yang of modern Japanese cinema.