Product Description

Takeshi Kitano's dazzling film is a thrilling tale of swordplay and adventure set in 19th Century Japan. Zatoichi ('Beat' Takeshi) is a blind wanderer whose humble facade disguises his prodigious skills as a master swordsman, gifted with a lightning fast draw and strokes of breathtaking precision. Arriving in a remote mountain town, he finds its people terrorised by the ruthless Ginzo gang and their mighty samurai ronin Hattori, who mercilessly dispose of all who get in their way. With his legendary cane sword at his side, Zatoichi's path is destined for many violent confrontations...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5691 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-07-26
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: Japanese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, the Japanese actor-director best known in the US for his quirky, ulraviolent gangster movies (Fireworks, Brother, Sonatine) and in the UK (among satellite and cable viewers, at least) for the bizarre It's a Knockout-meets-Endurance gameshow Takeshi's Castle, applies his off-kilter sensibility to the samurai genre in The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi. A blind masseur (Kitano with his hair dyed white) wanders into a small town divided up by rival gangs. Though hunched and shuffling, Zatoichi soon reveals his deadly skills as a swordsman. He befriends a pair of geisha girls with secrets of their own and helps them hunt down the bandits who killed their parents. But one of the gangs has just hired a ronin, a masterless samurai, whose fighting skill may equal the blind swordsman's.

Zatoichi mixes a melodramatic storyline, deadpan comedy, and dazzling, CGI-enhanced swordfights into a supremely entertaining package. In Japan, Zatoichi is a recurring character in popular action movies, but Kitano places his own unique stamp on the series. --Bret Fetzer

Special Features
Making of Documentary Theatrical Trailer Stills and Poster Gallery Takeshi Kitano Filmography

Synopsis
Takeshi Kitano, best known for such gangster films as VIOLENT COP, BOILING POINT, and BROTHER, makes his first period drama with ZATOICHI, an updating of the classic Japanese character portrayed by Shintaro Katsu in movies and television from 1962 to 1989. Zatoichi is a blind samurai who shuffles from town to town, righting wrongs with his remarkable sword hidden within his cane. He is also a masseuse who likes to gamble. Kitano serves as director, writer, co-editor, and star of the film, playing the protagonist under his acting name, Beat Takeshi. This version of Zatoichi, based on the stories of Kan Shimozawa, is more violent than the earlier series, as Kitano strives to make it more realistic. He has also infused a clever sense of humour, while cinematographer Katsumi Yanagishima adds beautiful depth of field to many scenes.
When Zatoichi arrives in a small town, he unknowingly walks into a classic tale of revenge, as two women plot to kill the men who murdered their family. As Zatoichi becomes more involved, an eventual showdown with young samurai Hattori (Tadanobu Asano, who excelled in Takashi Miike's very violent ICHI THE KILLER) is inevitable. ZATOICHI is thrilling filmmaking at its best, an endlessly entertaining samurai epic from a man who fully understands the genre and is not afraid to take it to the next level.

Customer Reviews

A samurai movie to get your feet tapping
A film about loss. Zatoichi is a blind samurai roaming the country in the guise of a masseur, the cane with which he taps his way along acting as the scabbard to a razor sharp sword. In this film, we have him meeting up with a vicious gang of cutthroats who run a protection racket in a village; they've hired a ronin, a masterless samurai, who quickly disposes of the rival gang, single-handed. He recognises the skill of the blind Zatoichi. Sooner or later they must confront one another. The ronin has lost his honour, his wife has lost her health.

Enter a wandering pair of geishas, two young women who have lost both their childhood and their innocence. They are intent on revenge and are hunting down people who have wronged them. And then there's the gambler, who loses everything in the gaming room, including his self-respect ... until Zatoichi comes along.

It's a beautifully enigmatic plot, with lots of tributes to Kurosawa's samurai epics - especially Yojimba. All the characters suffer loss - of sight, of identity, of family, home, their mind ... and, of course, life. The body count is huge, without the slaughter becoming too visceral or gory. The action sequences are beautifully choreographed and the soundtrack wonderfully syncopated - watch out for the rhythm sections ... and the climactic tap dancing scene! And throughout, while the tension is built, stage by stage, there are visual and audio gags to make you laugh out loud.

This is a beautifully observed and well directed movie, with characters who'll capture your attention and your emotion, and a well-paced plot which will keep you glued to the screen.

Great fun and back to form
I'm a huge fan of Takeshi Kitano's films in which the main characters, for the most part, are modern day gangsters or people invloved with gangsters. His newest film Zatoichi however is a period piece set in feudal Japan and follows the adventures of a blind masseur who also happens to be a highly skilled swordsman. The character of Zatoichi is pretty famous in Japan and there are loads of films featuring the character - I guess in the same way that the Chinese folk hero Wong Fei Hung has been portrayed in over a hundred Hong Kong films, though I don't think Zatoichi was a real person. So, samurai sword film by Kitano. Joy!

Zatoichi is excellent and more light hearted than expected. It contains Kitano's own brand of humour and swift violence, has some great characters and an involving and sometimes poignant story - the geisha twins' tale of lost innocence comes to mind here. He's also added some really neat touches to the sound; the scenes where Zatoichi passes workers in the field and where a house is being built are actually percussive pieces which slowly build up layer by layer until its becomes obvious your listening to music. It might seem a lttle odd in description but it sits well in the overall film. When I first saw these scenes I thought they must be an attempt to get inside Zatoichi's world; he can only hear after all and Zatoichi's finding of rythm and music in everyday sounds might explain his superhuman martial skills. After seeing the ending however, I'm not so sure.

Kitano plays the lead really well (with a Gazza haircut) and his reserved style of acting is ideally suited. He adds a subtle kindliness to the role and acts the "doddery old blind man" quite convincingly. The fighting scenes see him shift instantly into a hyper-alert, super-deadly swordsman and back again in the space of a few seconds (think Yoda in Attack of the Clones). He's also tricky much like Kurosawa/Mifune's lone samurai in Yojimbo and Sanjuro. It reminds me alot of those films actually - because of the setting (village with yakuza), the humour and the lead characters - but it stands out as firmly unique because of Kitano's inspired direction and his homage to the genre.

The fights themselves are marvelous and two stand out as particularly cool. Swordplay in some martial arts films get lost in themselves with just slashing noises and facial close-ups. Thankfully Kitano mixes up the long, wide and close shots and we're treated to nice range of filming styles during the duelling and brawling sequences with some inspired swordplay. Also to be thankful for is the absence of wild acrobatics which, whilst I enjoy them in kung-fu flicks, would have been bad for this film.

The other main badass in the plot - an ambiguous good/bad guy - is pretty deadly too. Like most of the other main characters he has his own personal dilemas to contend with (killing to pay for his sister's medicine) and this is portrayed really well. He should have his own movie. Other memorable characters include the chubby, naked samurai wannabe charging round and round the house all day and the two murderous geishas. The antics of the main characters during the middle of the film reminded me fondly of the scenes in Sonatine where the gangsters kill time whilst hiding out in the beach house.

This film is well polished, more than his others, and is probably one of his most 'approachable'. Its easily his best film since Hana-bi although the genres are not really comparable.

Only one country makes truly great Samurai films
Unlike other samurai/Japanese style films made recently *cough Kill Bill cough Last Samurai cough* Zatoichi hits the target on every level.
While watching the others I couldn't help but feel conspicious "Look at me, I'm fashionable watching western films about Samurai" but with Zatoichi there's none of this feeling.
Kitano's directing style is straight down the line, totally unpretentious.
Yes it's 'arty'. It's a foreign language film with subtitles which'll put some people off within the first two minutes.
Kitano's style of long lingering unmoving shots has been curbed here, the man himself states it's to make a more mainstream film, to make use of more modern film-making styles. Good on him.

The plot is a classic Japanese period plot; A town is being run by an underhand and violent Yakuza gang, a hero enters the town, defeats the gang and gets a final showdown against the tough bad guy (in this case Tadanobu Asano (Ichii The Killer) perfectly cast as the mighty no-nosense ronin Hattori.
Kitano himself plays the blind masseur Zatoichi who turns out to be incredibly skilled with a blade. Soon Zatoichi is befriended by a lovely middle-aged lady, her nephew (the no-good gambler with a heart of gold) and two geishas with a sad and bloody past.

The pretty graphic violence (swordplay aplenty)is offset by a lot of fantastic visual and verbal humour and a magnificent soundtrack with dance finale.

Don't expect any clashing of swords though, Kitano was determined to make the fighting as realistic as possible, meaning fights are short and bloody affairs, perfectly handled by actors and direction alike.

Kitano's acting performance is spot-on as the chuckling, shuffling friendly masseur, turned death-bringer when required. He makes an intensely likeable main character while uttering very few words throughout.

Including nods to past Japanese classics (including Kurusawa's Seven Samurai - fighting in the rain with a blue sky), Kitano rightly won the Best Director at the Venice Film festival in 2003.
This is his best film to date and a welcome forray away from present day Yakuza.