


Hammers and saws represent new life and music bursts forth from them. Repeatedly the toils of the characters become the soundtrack, with hoes and shovels becoming instruments. This is a hopeful story in which the work of the common people becomes the heartbeat and rhythm of the film. Takeshi KitanoĮd: Kitano’s Zatoichi takes place in a world filled with death and gore, but which may also burst into song or laughter at any moment.

THE BLIND SWORDSMAN: ZATOICHI (2003) Dir. So keep your eyes peeled for that that final walk down the unknown road. We’ll close out the entire column with one final entry just to wrap up our thoughts on the series as a whole and its overall impact on cinema, as well as ranking some of our favorites. Read on to find out about three totally unrelated productions that have homaged Ichi over the past decade. All various remakes and reboots this time out, we’ll walk you through them all (well, the Japanese ones anyway) and give you our thoughts on whether these updates bring honor to our beloved Ichi franchise… or just remind us of better days. We’ve said goodbye to Shintaro Katsu and will cover our final round of Zatoichi films this week. Each post is going to cover three films, and once we finish covering the core 25 films of the original adventures, we’ll even dive in to some of the remakes and reboots! Wander with us as we marvel at The Tales Of Zatoichi. Roughly every other week until we are through, We’ll spend roughly 300 words covering each film specifically, and then we’ll each get a chance to offer another round of final thoughts as well. THE TALES OF ZATOICHI - With 25 adventures of Shintaro Katsu’s famed blind, wandering swordsman Zatoichi recently becoming available through both a remarkable Criterion Collection box set, and digitally via Hulu Plus, our team decided it was time to walk down the dusty roads of adventure and watch and discuss the entire legendary chanbara series.
