Blind following the blind

The Blind Swordman: Zatoichi makes a great double bill with Kill! It is also a serious samurai action film, a comedy and a revisionist parody. But mostly, a samurai action film.

It is a remake of the classic Shintaro Katsu Zatoichi series. In 30-odd movies, made from 1962-1989, the blind, chubby, sloppy, gambling, rambling masseur Zatoichi fights injustice and rights wrongs done by the powerful. He can do this because, though blind, chubby, etc., he is the greatest swordsman alive.

Now Beat Takeshi, popular Japanese comic and director has decided to do a remake. Takeshi-san is known in the US for his tv show Raid on Takeshi Castle and for speaking the title line in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, or possibly for his recent yakuza movies, like Sonatine. Since he can be pretty wacky, I was expecting something in a revisionist vein.

Instead, Zatoichi is played almost perfectly straight. The plot, as usual, concerns some greedy crime bosses messing things up for ordinary citizens and gentler criminals. There is a noble bodyguard (yojimbo) who does bad things because he needs the money. There are comic gamblers and a pair of geisha girls who are brother and sister. As in Kill!, I couldn't follow the plot after a while. I've found that this is typical of a traditional samurai film. I don't know if I'm missing clues that a Japanese native would get, or if they just like their movies puzzling. I don't let it bother me anymore.

Takeshi does add a few twists on the tradition. He gives Zatoichi bleached blonde hair (supposed to be turned white from age or fright, or?). There is a lunatic neighbor who charges around screaming with a spear in armor and a diaper, playing samurai. There is a final twist that is severely non-canonical, but you expect that from remakes. He needs to put his stamp on the franchise.

The curtain closer sort of sums up the mixture of tradition and modernity - like the western music in Kill!. The peasants have a festival (like at the end of Kill!) and start dancing to the traditional drumming in traditional costume. They stamp their feet in their wooden sandals, the rhythms become more western, and the stamping gives way to - a tap recital.