Zatoichi's Pilgrimage is the 14th film in the Zatoichi series and it was released August 13 1966. It's directed by Kazuo Ikehiro, written by Kaneto Shindo and Shintaro Katsu plays the blind masseur Zatoichi. Ikehiro had previously directed Zatoichi's Flashing Sword and Zatoichi and the Chest Of Gold. He does a great job here. The movie looks good and there's one interesting shot after another. He seems to favor long shots with tiny Zatoichi's in the distance. On the whole the series has a nice lot of directors as well as great casts, sets, props and locations. Criterion was right to pick this series for preservation.
Zatoichi is travelling to Shikoku to visit the 88 shrines on the island. Zatoichi is thinking he'd seek a bit of atonement for his violent life. On the way over he has a bit of a fight on the ship, showing up a brazen thief with some flashing sword work. He didn't kill the guy. It made me laugh.
That's Zatoichi kneeling before the shrine. He looks like an ant in a kimono. There are plenty of wonderful shots like this in the movie.
On the island he's attacked on that bridge. You can barely see him he's so far away. Zatoichi leaves the dead man floating in the river. Zatoichi follows the road with the dead man's horse following him. At the intersection in the picture below the horse asks Zatoichi to follow him. Zatoichi, ever obliging to the right person, or animal, follows the dead man's horse to a nearby town.
The horse leads him to a house with a young woman named Okichi. He tells her he's killed her brother and she attacks him with a sword. Zatoichi doesn't fight back and she cuts his shoulder.
She breaks down and nurses him back to health.
Okichi fills Zatoichi in on the greedy Boss who's trying to control the town. He doesn't want to get involved but the Boss turns out to be the one who hired Okichi's brother and he wants Zatoichi dead. Zatoichi will soon convince him that that was a bad idea.
There's a lot of film after that and lots of conversation and sword fighting. That's the Boss having a lesson in deportment. Zatoichi takes a beating but survives. He leaves on his quest for enlightenment. I thought it was another good one. It gets a lot of nice comments on the internet, people often say it's the best of the series so far. I wouldn't want to play favorites, I like the whole series, but it is very enjoyable. I'll be getting back to the series again in the future.
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