The first of the Shintaro Katsu Zatorichi films is The Tale Of Zatoichi. It showed up in the Japanese theaters on April 18 1962 and proved to be popular. There were enough sequels between 1962 and 1973 to turn it into one of Japan's longest film series. The series is set in the late Edo period which is about 1830 to 1850. Zatoichi is a blind masseur and an expert with the cane sword. He was created by novelist Kan Shimozawa. The first entry in the film series had a screenplay by Minoru Inuzuka. He would write one more Zatoichi film and hardly anything else. The director of the first feature was Kenji Misumi who would direct several more Zatoichi films, a Hanzo The Razor film and four of the Lone Wolf And Cub series. The music for the first film is by Akira Ifukube who is mostly known for writing the Godzilla music over at Toho. He did scores for lots of other movies too.
Shintaro Katsu would make 25 films as the blind masseur Zatoichi between 1962 and 1973 then revisit the character one last time in 1989. I've got the whole batch of Criterion DVDs to watch. Sperhauk bought the Blu-Ray DVD combo set and passed along the dvds to me. The films have all been remastered and they look great. The movies have Zatoichi moving from town to town plying his trade as a masseur. He gambles and drinks and gets into fights. Lucky for him he's practised sword fighting. His skill turns out to be a problem for his attackers. Unsuspecting his skill they think they're robbing a blind man, and whoosh, their arms come right off. Oww! Spurt! He often helps the poor sap who's had some wrong done to him or her.
In the first film he's hired by Yakusa boss Sukegoro to help with an upcoming fight with Shigezo, a rival Yakusa boss. Zatoichi doesn't have much respect for his new boss but the guy really is a creep. Shigezo hires his own sword slinger, Hirate, who really admires Zatichi. A relationship between Zatoichi and Hirate develops during the waiting time before the Yakusa's go to war. Hirate turns out the have TB and Sukegoro decides to attack without Zatoichi's help. There's a bit more complication to the story before Zatoichi gets to leave town. He's lucky, many of them won't leave town anymore.
I'd seen the first Zatoichi film several times and it still remains interesting and entertaining. I like the setting, the film makers put plenty of interesting shots up on the screen. I like the characters, Zatoichi has a good moral sense and plenty of compassion. There are usually plenty of bad guys to kick down and sad people who need a bit of a hand up. It's not all about the fighting, there's a good bit of humor and social observation. Yakuza bosses and corrupt officials make Japan a tough place to live and an ordinary man's life wasn't worth much. Women were often worth less than a man.
The series remains highly popular and the first movie scores a 7.7 on the IMDb. I gave it an 8 over having to give it a 7. It's a nicely done film and even more nicely the Criterion set puts the whole 26 films in one basket. That wasn't the case in the previous dvd releases. I have the set, partly Animeigo dvds, partly from some dvdr's that I made from TCM and VHS tape releases by Chambara Films. It's a series that is well worth seeing. As I mentioned the first film was recently posted to YouTube. There are several more and I'll post more links as I go through the films over the next while.
Sorry, but I have to correct you on your statement that Zatoichi is Japans longest film series. There are at least half a dozen japanese film series with more sequels. For example Utaemon Ichikawas Bored Hatamoto series (30 films), Kanjuro Arashis Kurama Tengu series (30 films), the comedy series Kigeki ekimae (more than 40 films) and of course Kiyoshi Atsumis Tora-San series with 48 films. Besides than that keep up the good work, looking forward to read your review on the nex part.
Posted by: Pablo Knote | June 25, 2014 at 11:24 AM
Sorry, but you misread that, I said it was one of Japan's longest film series, not the longest.
Posted by: Garth Danielson | June 25, 2014 at 04:17 PM