I had forgotten poor Zatoichi, he got buried and it's been ages since I since I last watched one of his films. Counting this one I've only got 7 more to watch to finish up the series. I've added the 1989 film in there, it's not included with the Criterion set but I have a copy anyway. I've already blogged about the remake with Takeshi Kitano.
The 20th Zatoichi film was Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo and it came out January 15 1970. The script was written by director Kihachi Okamoto and Tetsuro Yoshida. Shintaro Katsu plays Zatoichi and Toshiro Mifune plays Yojimbo, though he has another name in the film.
With this film, Toho Studios starts making the Zatoichi films. The previous productions were made at Daiei Motion Picture Company, they went bankrupt in 1971. Since the 16th film Shintaro Katsu's own production company, Katsu Productions, has been co-producing the films. He would also produce the Zatoichi TV series. Toho had produced the 2 previous, Kurosawa directed, Yojimbo films with Toshiro Mifune. Those, like The Seven Samurai, belong in anyone's film collection. The Yojimbo films has been copied in other countries, you might have seen A Fistful Of Dollars, Django, The Warrior And The Sorceress, or Last Man Standing. Even John Belushi owes something to Yojimbo.
Zatoichi returns to his home town to find that the headman had lost control of the town to some thugs. Yojimbo is working for the big name merchant, who also hires Zatoichi to be his masseuse. The merchant's creepy son hired Yojimbo to kill Zatoichi but Yojimbo drinks away the day instead, just bidding his time. The locals have a lot of tension going on. The rivals for control are fighting, there's an Inspector due any day now, the merchant's son has hired a deadly killer and he's due any day. There's a lot going on, the film runs 4 seconds short of 116 minutes.
There's plenty of action, some sad bits, a bit of failed romance, a bit of comedy, and nearly everyone dies. Zatoichi misses one of the big fights but there's a nice one near the end.
Still making nice quality films under the new logo. It's a series that I can't recommend enough. Worthy of anyone's collection. The Criterion box set of the first 25 films comes with both Blu-Ray's and DVDs. I still have to do my screen caps from the DVDs because I don't have anyway to do it from the Blu-Ray, which look much nicer. It's kind of pricey, $117 on Amazon right now, but there are 25 films on oodles of discs. It's the only complete collection released in the US from one company. The quality is really high and it comes in a nice box with a book.
Comments