‘Zatoichi’ has all the right moves

REVIEW

By Christy Lemire

updated 9:52 a.m. ET July 23, 2004

“The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi” begins life as a straight-up samurai movie, evolves into a slapstick comedy and ends as a rousing, tap-dancing musical.

That may sound clunky, but writer-director Takeshi Kitano — who also stars in the movie as “Beat” Takeshi, the name he uses when he’s acting — approaches each genre gracefully and moves smoothly from one to the next.

Kitano, who’s popular in Japan as a standup comedian and TV host, is best known in the United States as the director of violent gangster films (“Brother,” “Hana-Bi”). Here, he re-envisions the mythical Japanese action hero, Zatoichi, with sly humor and a beautiful sense of simplicity.

Quick facts Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Takeshi Kitano, Michiyo Ookusu, Yui Natsukawa, Gadarukanaru Taka Director: Takeshi Kitano Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes MPAA rating: R

Zatoichi arrives at a remote mountain village and tries to help liberate the residents from the sadistic grip of the gang leader Ginzo (Ittoku Kishibe). Although he can’t see, he has a remarkably intuitive sense of his surroundings, which is played for clever, subtle laughs.

“I couldn’t ask a sight-impaired man to chop wood,” a gentleman tells him when he arrives in town and offers his assistance. But it’s too late — Zatoichi has already sliced the wood into equally sized pieces and tossed them over his shoulder, forming a tidy pile.

Later, when he sits down at a gambling parlor, the player next to him asks, “Aren’t you betting?” He replies politely, “I’ll just watch for now,” but ends up listening to the way the dice rattle in the cup and winning every round.

At the beginning of the film, Zatoichi single-handedly takes on a gang of thugs who try to steal his sword (which he hides inside a red walking cane). Then he meets his match in Hattori (Tadanobu Asano), the beefy bodyguard Ginzo hires — and he gets some help from a pair of geishas who are intriguing enough to star in their own film.

The beguiling O-Kinu (Yuko Daike) and her “sister” O-Sei (Daigoro Tachibana) — who’s actually O-Kinu’s cross-dressing brother — initially try to rob Zatoichi and his new friend, Shinkichi (Gadarukanaru Taka), an obsessive gambler. As they spend time together — and the geishas recall in a vivid flashback how they survived the massacre that wiped out their family — they all realize they have a common target: Ginzo.

Naturally, several battles must take place before Zatoichi and Hattori can face each other in the mother of all samurai showdowns. The most striking of these takes place in the driving rain, with the lightning giving the battle a strobe effect.

But there’s still time for surprisingly light moments. Besides the geishas, another memorable character is a chubby kid who lives next door to the home where Zatoichi is staying, who runs around the woods in battle gear, screaming to no one in particular.

And the culminating dance scene, which takes place during a festival at the village, begins with a few performers but builds steadily until everyone is stomping in time to the music, including the geishas and Zatoichi. It comes out of nowhere and radiates an unexpected joy — the perfect ending to a film that keeps you on your toes throughout.

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