Zatoichi!!! Hell yeah!

[N D Hill]

For those of you who don't know already (probably most of you, unfortunately), there were a wildly popular series of samurai movies in Japan about a fictional hero Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. He was blind ronin who carried a sword concealed with his cain and of course he didn't need need sight to kick the asses of 20 people at a time. He was also a gambling addict and massuer, strangely. The coreography was incredable too. They made probably more than 10 of these movies and when they began they were even in black and white. Basically, imagine a samurai with cult status of James Bond and John Wayne combined. I was only introduced to them over the past year because they play them every saturday morning on IFC. Now a remake has been made and the trailer is on apple's website. I can't wait for this.

Zatoichi (http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/zatoichi.html)

edit: correction: There were 26 movies! http://www.zatoichi.com/

[tyboogie]

yea the new one looks pretty ccool

how are the originals?

[N D Hill]

The originals are a lot like the old spagetti westerns. Basically, you have one cowboy who's always down on his luck but has a heart of gold and he goes from town to town playing dice, drinking, flirtn' with da ladies, and killing bullies who push innocent people around... plus he's blind and a gives massages.

[epiphany]

ive pre-ordered the dvd......will have to wait a whole freakin year for it

[SicFrost]

The originals are pretty much like the Lone wolf series...or a watered down seven samurai, still hot though...Zatoichi is a must see for any fan of the samurai movies

_B0R1S

[SicFrost]

And another thing anyone whos a fan of Kitano's work MUST SEE "Brother" costaring Omar Epps....sickest movie in the world

_B0R1S

[usagi yojimbo]

man i hate that cheesy movie trailer narrator voice

still the movie looks pretty cool

[N D Hill]

http://www.justice-is-blind.com/

The official site has launched. I don't know what I think about it being rated-R, not that I'm against a good bloody samurai brawl, but the originals never portrayed the killing as anything more than a guy holding his gut and falling over.

[young paddy1]

Zatoichi, is one of the coolest films I have ever seen, especially all of the weird stuff that happens alongside the main story. Beat was the perfect choice for the part and the ending has to be seen to be believed.

[Nimrod]

The movie is very very good. I saw it at an asian film festival in Dallas. It's very musical; there's even a big tap dance number. It's not a whole lot like Beat Takeshi's other movies, it's a very different direction for him. The crowd really seemed to like it a lot, I think it will go over really well.

[Floris Didden]

I really liked Zatoichi, seen it like 6 months or so ago on a movie festival here in Rotterdam. The movie is actually based on a very old story (few hundred yrs I recall), that of Zatoichi, the shows you refered to would've been based on that as well.

The action (blood) is kind of over the top, but in a very cool way :).

[roger]

Kitano's movie is very nice, I like how it shifts from violence to comedy to even dancing numbers, the only problem is that it's made as if everyone knew who Zatoichi is (I guess in Japan they do) and I missed some kind of introduction to the character.

Btw, I think Brother is the worst movie I've seen from him!

[klid]

satoichi is great, i have the dvd, i watch it on a regular basis. the beginning scene is sweet