Review: Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi

Zatoichi is a 2003 jidaigeki action film directed by the prolific comedian/director Takeshi Kitano and serves as a reboot to the legendary 26 film series.

I've been getting into jidaigeki recently, Zatoichi, Yojimbo, Harakiri (the original), Tange Sazen, Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins, all films I want to see. My dad has three Zatoichi films on DVD, mainly Tale of Zatoichi and Zatoichi's cane sword, and what I believe to be film 26.

And while I did want to see some of the classic films, I had two films to choose from in the series as I wanted to see a modern take on it. Kitano's Zatoichi (2003) or Rutger Haur's Blind Fury. While the latter is a film I really want to see, I would rather not have it as my introduction to the series and I'm also a little bit more familiar with Kitano's work.

The film follows the traditional Zatoichi format, blind drifter Zatoichi comes to a new town with heavy gang violence, massages, gambles, and eventually helps out the locals to end the yakuza's clutch on the town as a one man problem solver.

Kitano's take on Zatoichi is wildly different in comparison to the first film I saw by him, Brother. While the two do feature mild similarities in his filmmaking, almost exclusively the dead pan camera movements and the occasional focus on nothing happening, that is where similarities really end.

The film's biggest strongpoint, aside from the action, is the fact it very faithfully replicates the essence and feel of old jidaigeki of the 60s and 70s. Action is not the main focus, the people are. It puts a lot of focus on the background of the geisha twins Zatoichi teams up with, it focuses on why they fight, why they want revenge and why they join forces with Zatoichi.

And it's a great thing, I grew pretty attached to these two as they had a very tragic background as the film fleshes their characters out greatly.

On the other hand, you have the one-off villain present in films of this type, played by none other than Tadanobu Asano.

His character, Hattori, is portrayed as a ronin hired as a bodyguard by a gang so he could support his (from what I could tell) sick wife. However, he becomes much more of a background character who's scenes primarily revolve around him killing large groups of people to hype him up as a force of nature.

And while this may or may not be an intentional decision on Kitano's part, I was pretty disappointed as Asano was another reason why I was drawn to this film.

 As for Zatoichi, he is an actual force of Nature. There is almost no rhyme or reason for how he kills, he just does. Each slash from his blade is beautifully precise, sending intentionally-bad CGI blood splatter all over the screen. It's fast blink-and-you-miss-it action much like the original Zatoichi films and is a breath of fresh air for those who are fatigued by long-winded action scenes that go on for 10 minutes. The longest fight in this film is not even 3.

Unlike some of his more bleak films, this one is a lot more light-hearted and has many humor-filled scenes throughout the film, and is where his signature deadpan camera is used on the most.

My personal favorite comedy moment, which you might or might not have seen depending on if you're aware of this film, would be the painted on eyes Zatoichi briefly gains halfway through the film, and is the only time Zatoichi's trademark smile is featured in the movie.

While I wouldn't know if a long-time fan of the series like my dad would like this film, if you like jidaigeki, Takeshi Kitano movies, or just want to burn 2 hours of your time due to boredom. I would recommend this film. It's free on Youtube at the time of writing this.

That's all for now, Love and Peace!