More Zatoichi Film Reviews! — Rachael Dickzen

The first four Zatoichi film reviews (and number 20)

I’m finally getting around to finishing up my quick reviews of/thoughts about the Zatoichi films, which I started in late May. Zatoichi was featured in 26 films from 1962-1989 and a 100 episode TV series in the 70s. Think of him like a Japanese Daredevil from the 1800s. I’ve now watched all of the films except the very last one, but we haven’t been able to figure out how to access the TV series yet.

By the way, the main character’s name is simply Ichi. “Zato” refers to the lowest ranking in the Todoza, which was a guild for blind men (there actually was a different guild for blind women). Edo society was HIGHLY socially stratified with little to no opportunities to change your career or life really, so Zatoichi’s title reflects that. This social stratification is a recurring theme throughout the films. Ichi is basically one of the lowest ranking members of the society, partly as a result of and in addition to his blindness, which is a big reason why his skill with the sword always surprises everyone. In addition, during the Edo period, technically only men in the samurai class were allowed to carry swords, but this wasn’t enforced very well. As a result though, Ichi always uses a cane sword, which he keeps hidden within the cane until he really needs it.

Oh! So “yakuza” as its used in the films means “gangster.” Apparently the term actually originates from a traditional card game called Oicho-Kabu. I briefly tried to understand the rules of this game so I could explain it in more depth but quickly gave up – basically, tl;dr – “Ya-ku-za” is made up of the three numbers which create the worst possible hand that can be drawn in the game.

On to the actual little film reviews! *** Indicates my favorites!

5. Zatoichi on the Road (Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1963)

At the beginning of the film, Ichi has to kill a few gangsters who attack him and his guide (who lasts only a few minutes in the film). He meets Hisa, one of the dead gangster’s wives immediately afterwards, who is strangely callous and calm when she tells Zatoichi that he just killed her husband (because they attacked him). Shortly thereafter, Ichi is asked to escort a girl named Mitsu to her wealthy family in Edo. Mitsu is in trouble and currently hiding out, as she stabbed a local lord in the face with her hairpin when he tried to rape her (GOOD FOR HER).

There’s a great scene where Ichi ends up talking about himself to someone who knows of him but doesn’t recognize him AS the great Zatoichi. He disparagingly says that Ichi learned how to fight and people have been following him and trying to kill him ever since and it’s all a terrible bother. It’s an interesting character development point.

Hisa continually tries to interfere with Ichi’s attempts to save Mitsu and at one point persuades Mitsu that Ichi is actually going to hurt her and gets her to leave. Hisa immediately brings Mitsu to a gangster, who tries to hold Mitsu for ransom, but Ichi ends up finding her and fighting everyone to save her.

More shenanigans ensue as Ichi tries to keep Mitsu safe and more gangsters try to kill him and her. Ichi continues to show a great ability to tell the difference between good people who just happen to be involved in gangs and gangsters who actually are terrible people.

There are a couple of interesting details in this film. There’s a running joke with sour persimmons; Ichi first tries one and makes a terrible face, then later forces a scoundrel to eat a persimmon before showing him to the door. At one point, a group of children chases and laughs at Ichi (why do children tease blind men so often in the Zatoichi films), but he doesn’t seem to mind and actually is quite delighted to play with them.

This film has some Very 60s soap opera style music at the end, complete with an organ.

By the end of the film, Ichi is very clearly in love with Mitsu but knows it would never work out with them. He asks a friend to take her to a boat to safety. They wait for him for a while but eventually they realize that he isn’t joining them. At the end of the film, he walks off alone, smelling a kerchief that he kept of hers to remember her by.

6. Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (Directed by Kazuo Ikehiro, 1964)

This one has a very 60s James Bond style beginning, with the fights happening against a black background with no distinguishable setting, all against orchestral actiony music. Husband John joked, “He may have a higher body count just in the credits of this film than he does in any other movie.”

Ichi walks in to a village that’s celebrating paying off their huge tax debt and they invite him to come join them with their feasting and dancing. He ends up even playing drums for a while. So much of this film series concentrates on Ichi’s overwhelming sadness and melancholy that it’s really fun to see him let loose every once in a while.

So the tax payment ends up getting stolen, which was entirely foreseeable, since these assholes are carrying their 1,000 Ryo tax payment on a horse with a giant sign that says “tax payment” on it. Are they TRYING to get robbed blind? The tax payment theft gets blamed on Ichi (who just happened to be nearby when the robbery happened and ended up sitting on the chest for a while, thinking it was just some random thing) and Boss Chuji, the local yakuza/Robin Hood figure, but ultimately it ends up that a corrupt magistrate actually stole it all. Lots of complications ensue but ultimately Ichi gets the villagers their money back. At the end, he slowly walks toward the villager’s celebration music while his face is covered in scratches and tears, theoretically to join them, but at the end of Zatoichi’s films, he typically just wanders away without a goodbye, so it’s hard to tell.

This one includes some VERY 60s organ and film transitions here- like spinning video like in Batman. There’s a funny scene where Ichi is interacting with a sex worker who apparently really needs to take a bath where he’s just trying to get away from her and it’s the weirdest funniest thing.

Recurring Zatoichi element: Calling out other dudes being jerks to women. At one point he goes into an onsen (a bathing facility) for women joking about how he can’t actually see anything, but then ends up splashing water on the peeping toms looking through a a wall.

The whole “a combatant in a fight is already dead before he actually moves and falls to the ground thing” is such a cliche but i love it anyway.

7. Zatoichi’s Flashing Sword (Directed by Kazuo Ikehiro, 1964) ***

This film opens with a really artsy and beautiful opening shot aimed straight down into the room where the action is happening. The camera ends up moving around like it’s on the back of a fly that Zatoichi ends up cutting in half with his sword.

Here’s another movie in a row with a good yakuza and a bad magistrate. In this one, the good yakuza keeps the prices for the ford across the river low to avoid burdening the locals. Here, this “ford” consists of strong burly men carrying people across on their backs. It’s such an interesting cultural detail that I don’t think you’d see in the west, even back in the 1800s, as you end up being carried across the river by perfect strangers. The workers at the ford literally climb underneath the outstretched legs of their passengers to get them positioned on their shoulders.

The ford becomes a huge bone of contention as the bad magistrate tries to take control of it away from the good yakuza and charge the locals more money for it all. Ichi stays with the good yakuza for a few days leading up to the festival after helping put an end to some fights around the ford and ends up helping him out in other ways as well.

During all the back and forth, Ichi is attacked while crossing the river and ends up going underwater to fight his assailants. The underwater sword fight was extremely cool. He manages to kill them all from below and had to check their bodies with his sword to make sure they were dead. Apparently this was a real thing and lots of the original freestyle swimming competitions in the Olympic s were easily dominated by the Japanese, because they were used to training in swordfighting in water.

At one point, a samurai working for the evil magistrate references Ichi’s fights with the samurai master Miki Hirate (from the first film, The Tale of Zatoichi), yakuza boss Sukegorō Hanoka (from the second film, The Tale of Zatoichi Continues), and a magistrate in other province (Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold). Ichi’s fame has really grown. I’m sad that his reputation ends up persuading the good yakuza send him away before the fireworks show he desperately wants to see, as they’re afraid of him. Ichi is awesome though and continues to help them and fight their enemies for them. Interesting thing - they knew he was a blind man named Ichi but didn’t connect he was Zatoichi BECAUSE Ichi was apparently a very common name for blind men acting as masseurs, although usually they have some other name as well. I think the overall commonness and humility of his name ties in very well into the series and character’s overall feel.

There’s a wonderful repeating joke in this film where Zatoichi, the blind man, tries to talk to the fireworks maker, a deaf man.

I love how people see him fight and kill multiple people really quickly and STILL ask “what can you do, you’re blind?” This film features a moment where Zatoichi just goes Kill Bill on all the bad guys as the fireworks go off in the background quite beautifully. Ichi is overall so patient and calm and chill when people harass him for his blindness that it’s impressive when he loses his shit. “I’ve had about all I can take from you.”

Recurring Zatoichi element: “In the dark I have the advantage; it turns you all into blind men.” His trick of cutting a candle in half so the flame falls escalates in this film, where he’s actually fighting with a lit candle top on his sword for a while.

Recurring Zatoichi element: Calling out other dudes being jerks to women. In one small scene, Ichi pretends to be a peeping Tom with a few other men and then loudly asks everyone if they’re looking at the woman to alert her to their presence.

Zatoichi Girl whose name starts with O: For some reason many women in the series that have some sort of possibly romantic relationship with Ichi have names starting with O. This film’s version is Okuni.

8. Fight, Zatoichi, Fight (Directed by Kenji Misumi, 1964) *** (This is actually my favorite Zatoichi film of them all!)

As the series goes on, they’re clearly trying to differentiate the films’ beginnings in new and artistic ways. This one opens with a focus on Zatoichi’s feet and sandals as he’s walking along a path, including a moment where he even steps in manure (ew). There’s also a sweet blind man’s pilgrimage where they all claim to be named Ichi to fuck with the people looking for Zatoichi and hide him to the side somewhere. (although as I mentioned previously, Ichi was apparently a common name for blind masseurs at the time). This blindman’s pilgrimage will show up twice more in the film.

The whole plot of the film really gets going when a woman is tragically killed in a palanquin, as his enemies thought Zatoichi was in it (he had just given up the palanquin to the woman, who was tired from walking). It’s really tragic, as the baby is just like, crying while still held in his dead mother’s arms, ack.

Shortly after, as the people in the nearby village help Ichi figure out what’s going on (reading through the woman’s papers to find her identity and such) and prep him to go take the baby to his father, the baby pees in ichi’s face. Because why not.

Later, Ichi hears a woman singing a very disturbing lullaby to a baby about its mother dying while she herself is walking on a very thin bridge while Ichi watches her with HIS orphaned baby from a thicker bridge. This lullaby will come back twice more in the film and also plays as an instrumental at various points.

As he travels throughout Japan, Ichi is just dropping the kid’s dirty diapers in creeks wherever he goes? People DRINK out of those creeks, Ichi. Ichi improvises with the baby by giving him a leaf to play with. In one hilarious scene, he asks a woman to lead him to a scarecrow in a field, and then assaults the poor scarecrow (as the woman watches in confusion) to take his clothes and flags from the fence for diapers.

There are multiple funny moments where Ichi balances child care with fighting for his life. While changing the kid’s diaper, his enemies try to kill him and he kills like five of them, while keeping the baby safe the whole time. He actually says straight out, “seriously, you can’t just let me change this kid’s diaper?” At another moment, he shushes a dying man, as the baby is sleeping.

There’s a very cute scene where he’s at a gambling table with the baby, conferring with the baby over whether to bet odd or even. Later, when he figures out that the game is fixed, he throws the baby into a woman’s arms for safety so he could reveal the loaded dice switch.

That night, he hires a sex worker just to take care of the baby while he sleeps (I LOVE HIM). He gave her rice water to feed him and a string rattle to play with him. “Aren’t you lucky, going to sleep with this pretty lady?” He is the cutest helicopter parent and keeps checking on him, even feeling for his breath while he sleeps, aww.

A random thief lady named Oko comes along and ends up joining Ichi on his journey to help him with a child, falling for Ichi in the process, of course. They encounter the blind men’s pilgrimage again and they happily greet the woman and the child, assuming that they’re his family.

Don’t let a baby pee off a balcony y’all. They might pee on a sumo who then threaten to kill you. Immediately after this incident, Ichi ends up fighting a ton of people with fire because of course he does.

Toward the end of the journey, right before he’s about to bring the baby to his father, he drives Oko away with harsh words and pretends not to love the child when he in fact really does. The moment she leaves, he picks up the kid and is like “don’t listen to anything I just said” and sings him the lullaby.

Shenanigans ensue but ultimately the baby’s father ends up being a jerk who denies him as his own. Ichi briefly thinks he’s going to adopt the child and raise him as his own, but ultimately gives him to a kind monk who politely suggests that the kid would likely be better off being cared for in a temple rather than traveling on the road with a blind yakuza. Ichi walks away at the end singing the creepy lullaby and playing with the kid’s rattle, clearly very distraught at the loss of the child.

At the very end, the blind men’s pilgrimage walks past him, the third time we’ve seen them. Ichi ends up looking at them but says nothing to announce his presence. He doesn’t want to answer their questions about the child or the wife. (HEART BROKEN FOREVER)

Recurring element: Ichi reveals that the dice in a gambling den are loaded, making enemies, of course.

Zatoichi Girl whose name starts with O: Oko

9. Adventures of Zatoichi (Directed by Kimoyshi Yasuda, 1964)

I don’t have a ton of notes on this film, as it’s well done but is a very complex story with lots of different minor but important characters and different plots running throughout it. Ichi gets involved with delivering a note to Sen, a woman at an inn, from a stranger yakuza. Also at the inn is Saki, a woman hunting for her father, a town chief who’s gone missing. This film also features Giju, an old drunk who may be Ichi’s long lost father, which leads Ichi to trust him, even though he likely shouldn’t.

It’s all set in the background of a New Year’s celebration, which is really beautiful and fun. A festival air pervades it all. A local magistrate and a corrupt yakuza though, have raised rates for the festival and are demanding an exorbitant cut of the revenues from the vendors who have come into town to entertain the populace. These entertainers are a fun bunch and include some musical duos and a Statler and Waldorf style comedy duo.

All of the stories end up becoming intertwined in various ways. It’s a good film, but I personally found it a bit confusing to follow. There’s a later film in the series (Number 11, Zatoichi and the Doomed Man) which has similarly intertwined stories, but is executed in a much clearer and less confusing way.

Recurring element: Zatoichi befriends random children. Two acrobat kids end up helping Ichi throughout the film as he tries to save the day.

Recurring element: Ichi exposes loaded dice while gambling.