Zatoichi
Directed by Takeshi Kitano.
Zatoichi is Japanese auteur Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano’s take on an iconic Japanese pop-culture figure, Zatoichi, the Blind Swordsman. Apparently there have been almost thirty films about this character, as well as a Japanese TV series. Roger Ebert has compared Kitano’s decision to make a film about this character to that of Clint Eastwood making a film about Hopalong Cassidy.
However, to a Western film-goer like myself, this is all fairly meaningless. Without intimate knowledge of the film’s backstory and cultural antecedents, any enjoyment I derive will be on the merits of the film itself. Unfortunately, Zatoichi comes as something of a disappointment. Kitano’s Hana-Bi made me an instant convert to his films, so perhaps my expectations were too high, but much of the film is somewhat sloppy, repetitive and meandering. Kitano has said that he deliberately eschewed stylised, finely-choreographed swordplay in favour of more (presumably realistic) brutal hacking and slashing, but this is undercut by the decision to use unconvincing computer generated spurts of blood.
To be fair, much of the film is visually striking and the music is deployed effectively. Kitano himself gives a typically sardonic, magnetic performance. Maybe future viewings of the film will prove to be more rewarding, and the film certainly has impressive critical support behind it, but it is with a heavy heart that I report that Zatoichi should be avoided.
Brenton Priestley
