Zatoichi

[Drunk Monk]

I've been watching Zatoichi movies on Hulu and enjoying them immensely. I'm about 4 films deep. I didn't realize that the films were so linear. I saw most of them in a haphazard order at art film houses, but if you watch them from the beginning, the characters and story arcs cross from one film to the next quite well. Shintaro Katsu's characterization of Ichi is just superb. And the swordfights are still cool - lots of long, frantic exchanges with Ichi adopting that ridiculous reverse-grip guard, and hapless attackers falling helplessly to stop cuts and thrusts, especially that reverse stab for the idiot yakuza who tries to cut him from behind and gets the ol' under-the-arm stab to the belly. As if attacking Ichi from behind is the way to go - he's blind so he doesn't have to see you coming.

I'm struck with how good Katsu's noto is (sheathing the sword). I have a scar on my thumb from a bad noto. That's actually one of the hardest moves in iaido, even with a dull blade.

[Drunk Monk]

I've been watching so much Zatoichi, I'm going blind.

The Tale of Zatoichi: It's a modest start really. This isn't much of an origins flick. It's really the first few films combined that serve as that. Already, Shintaro Katsu's charisma as Ichi is clear. He just nails that character, and the sword fight scenes, although modest in these early films, are superb.

The Tale of Zatoichi Continues: Zatoichi faces the one-armed swordsman, although not the one from China. There's this amusing subplot about a boss who is obviously gay (a mental condition) and how the vassals all try to hide that. When Ichi gives him a massage, hilarity ensues. It's somewhat of an outlier although a few characters and story arcs from the first flick carry over.

New Tale of Zatoichi: This one gives a lot of Ichi's backstory - his master, his love interests. It's somewhat anticlimactic in that his origins are rather mundane - no radioactive spider bite, nothing like that - just a blind kid that worked really hard to make up for his handicap - at least there is a backstory.

Zatoichi The Fugitive: More on his love interest - it gives closure on a lot of his history, so he can move on to detached total badassery.

Zatoichi on the Road: This is where the Zatoichi body count gets out of control. Many nice single-shot fight scenes with Ichi dispatching multiple opponents in succession. Also, sword tricks become more to the forefront - cutting candles where you see the noto first and then the candle splits in half.

As a side note, I also saw Blind Menace, which was a precursor to Zatoichi. Katsu plays Suginoichi, a blind masseuse. The character is totally reprehensible and utterly unredeemable, a murderer, a rapist, a backstabber, very unsympathetic. However, it's Katsu doing his blind man impression in a very raw form.

I'm in the middle of Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold, which features Tomisaburo Wakayama as a whip-wielding scar-faced villain. Wakayama was Ogami Itto - Lone Wolf in the Baby Cart from Hell series. He is also the older blood brother of Shintaro Katsu. This installment gets bloodier, opening with a close-up shot of an open sword wound.

[cranefly]

character is totally reprehensible and utterly unredeemable

Interesting. He seemed to have an affinity for that type of character.
Such as his Hanzo the Razor trilogy. Though as Hanzo he occasionally tempered his rape and pillaging with the killing of a bad guy.

[Drunk Monk]

So I got sucked into Hanzo, which is also available on Hulu+. I watched almost the whole trilogy last night (I'll finish it as soon as I finish this post).

I had only seen the 2nd one, which is the only one that stands on it's own. The first one ends without resolving a lot. The second one continues the plot threads for the most part, with the comic hijinks - 'please don't stop' - redoubled like old favorite jokes. The third will resolve it, perhaps. Again, I didn't realize this was a true trilogy. The best thing about #1 is you can see more clearly what Hanzo is. It's a samurai film based on the style of blaxsploitation flicks - it's framing, it's plot devices... right down to the funky music.

I totally understand why Katsu did Hanzo. You must remember that his brother was Wakayama, who is bigger and was Lone Wolf. Now imagine being the guy doing Ichi, with amazing acting and extended single shot fights, and then your big bro comes along being all stoic with this freaking outrageous splatter fest. It's sibling rivalry. By the end of Ichi, Katsu wanted to break form. He wants to one-up his bro. He looks a lot more like Wakayama in Hanzo.

BTW, Chest of Gold was really good, and seeing the brothers duel was cool.

Ok, back to Hanzo.

[Drunk Monk]

I was hoping it would go farther than it did, get nastier than the others, and it really was just more of the same. While there is somewhat of a story progression of the trilogy, you're good just seeing #2 the Snare or #3 Who's got the Gold? as both are stand alone films, more or less. Only #1 Sword of Justice leaves you hanging at the end. Other than that, each installment to the series revisits the same motifs and jokes.

Of course, if I dreamed of making a documentary on Iron Crotch, I would be forced to watch all three flicks in order, just to further solidify my expertise.

I started Zatoichi's Flashing Sword, which opens with the fly slicing scene. This film is from 1964 and I now wonder if it was the first reference to slicing flies with a sword.

[Drunk Monk]

This is the first one that I know I've seen. I didn't realize that going into it. It's been so long since I've seen so many of these, it's all a blur. But then I'll hit a scene and think 'oh yea, I remember this.' Ironically, with Hanzo #2, it was the scene where the two assistants were eating watermelon. Of all the outrageous scenes in Hanzo, that was what stuck in my mind? I still can't figure why that was. For Zatoichi's Flashing Sword, it was the finale fight, which makes a heck of a lot more sense. There's this great hallway scene where Ichi does his signature slashing and steps back, then a moment later, all the candles fall apart one by one, and he makes a comment about how fighting in the dark evens the playing field (it totally doesn't as Ichi can kick ass no matter what). It's a great sword fight. Katsu delivers several long complex sequences of yakuza dicing.

The plots of Zatoichi are all more or less the same so afr, but there's some comfort in that.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Who would be so foolish as to dream about making a documentary about Iron Crotch. That is just absurd.

(When I alluded to getting the gang back together to a certain Mrs. Tu to pull the plane, all I got was laughter in return)

[Drunk Monk]

Criterion has put the entire 25 film collection on Hulu+.

I skipped ahead to my fav of all, #20 Zatoichi meets Yojimbo. My God that movie is AWESOME! I think I only saw it twice before, once with DOOM where Scapino declared that the main villain looked like DM, a notion that DM found flattering at the time, but now realize that the only resemblance is being Japanese and having messy hair. It still bugs me a little that Mifune isn't really Yojimbo, but a very different character, but any film with Mifune rocking his daisho is fine with me.

I'll go back to #8, but I have a few other flicks to screen this weekend hopefully.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I saw Z v Y with you in Palo Alto.

[Drunk Monk]

It was you, me and Scapino. Maybe ppfy or HK too? I still remember how you all burst out laughing when the villain appeared and Scapino said "It's Gene".

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I was there.

[Drunk Monk]

'it's g'
/
:oops:

[Drunk Monk]

Ok, I saw #8 Fight Zatoichi Fight in my visionquest to see them all in order already. I just forgot to review it here. It's a good study of Zatoichi's character, especially his camaraderie with other blind men and then his subsequent reclusiveness around them (due to guilt). Ichi tries to be charitable by offering a young woman and her baby a ride in a carriage, but assassins kill her by mistake. The baby survives and feeling guilty, Ichi tries to return the baby to its father, only to be drawn into more intrigue. Of course, the samurai-saddled-with-baby motif is reminiscent of his brother Tomisaburo's epic saga of Lone Wolf and cub, and I wonder which was first (a quick visit to IMDB would surely answer this but I'm not going to bother right now).

I started #9 Adventures of Zatoichi and already recognized a few scenes as this is one I remember seeing before. In particular, I remember the fight when rogues try to chase a women up a staircase and Ichi blocks their path, pretending to stumble about in a very Jackie-Chan-esque manner, then cutting a railing so fast and pushing one of the rogues through it. This film has several scenes where all that is shown is the noto, and then a moment later, something splits in half, like a that railing or a go board. Unfortunately Hulu+ quit on my about halfway through.

[Drunk Monk]

I just realized that I'm 10 movies in and these were all made in a few years, mostly '63 & '64. The next one, Zatoichi's Revenge, which I'm about halfway through, is '65. So far, the villains are more reprehensible, forcing cute Japanese damsels into prostitution, and Ichi is staying his hand to reveal the assassin of his massage master. There's this charming theme of Ichi's love for sunshine. Two great scenes: Ichi busts a cheating dice player by cutting the sake bottle where he hid the dice - of course, it takes a beat for the sake bottle to split and Ichi is being led by his cane by a little girl (the daughter of the cheating dice player) and cuts down a would-be assassin and replaces his sword in the cane without the girl knowing. She hears the body fall, but Ichi, always protective of the innocent, tells her not to look.

Zatoichi rocks. I am continually in awe of the cinematography, the choreography and the character development. They just don't make martial arts movies like this anymore.

[Drunk Monk]

This one had some great intersecting story arcs, particularly the parallels between Ichi's master's daughter and the dice player's daughter and their monkey song theme. The dice player was a great comic foil with his attempts to emulate Ichi's sword technique. He also had a great fart joke. Who can't appreciate a great fart joke? Especially in a '65 Chanbara flick. Ichi takes out dozens of henchmen in the big fight, bordering on three digits. I really liked the theme of Ichi's love of sunshine, poignant, ironic, and so well played in this one. Oddly, the soundtrack uses a lot of what could best be described as Mexican guitar riffs, evoking all those old spaghetti westerns. That chanbara/spaghetti western connection - something Clint, Yul and Tom McLaughlin understood - here it is, sort of, in '65.

I'm now 40% of the way through the film series (the TV series doesn't count here) and I have yet to find one that isn't impressive. The early ones were definitely rougher, yet unpolished, but still a good watch. Ichi has really found his groove in these later ones - the character is so well actualized - the epitome of the reluctant warrior, and yet when it's time to get down, the sword fights are excellent. Long complex single-shot scenes brilliantly executed with Katsu's eyes all rolled up playing blind. Why aren't today's martial arts flicks this sophisticated? Where did we go astray?