One of the most popular heroes in Japanese cinema, Zatoichi the blind swordsman inspired 26 feature films, more than 100 TV episodes, and countless comics and collectibles. But for a matinee idol, he ...
For years, the Japanese cinema cranked out samurai adventures about a blind swordsman named Zatoichi. As a job description, “blind swordsman” does not sound reassuring, but it’s a gimmick that has ...
It's not that "The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi" lacks gory scenes. When a sightless masseur chops off a gambler's hand, the amputated limb spouts a geyser of blood on par with anything in "Kill Bill." ...
Nobody can make you like this stuff if you don't want to. So although there's no doubt that "The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi" is the summer's most rousing action picture, it's also hard as nails, bloody ...
The great Bruce Lee twirled his limbs around with such fearsome speed and control that he seemed to be slicing through time itself. His whirling, precision chop kills weren’t just fast — they were ...
A man standing in front of me suddenly claps his hand and the sake bottle flies away. At that moment, show a sword-drawing technique that doesn't catch your eye ... The moment you put the sword in the ...
What separates “Zatoichi” from other swordfight movies is that the eponymous hero, played, of course, by Kitano himself, is blind. Like the many other directors of films featuring this well-known ...
MADRID — Takeshi Kitano’s “Zatoichi” took the top prize at the 36th Sitges Catalonia Intl. Film Festival, which wound down Saturday with a well-received screening of “11.14,” toplining Hilary Swank ...
For all their considerable charms, the Zatoichi films are the epitome of genre filmmaking at its most formulaic. By contrast, since branching out from TV, director-editor-writer-actor Takeshi Kitano ...