La légende de Zatoïchi - Le fugitif

By this point, the 'Zatoichi' series has slipped into full-on episodic territory, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. In essence, it's a bit like 'James Bond'; each outing takes place within a vague continuity but doesn't require any pre-existing knowledge to be enjoyed. It's perhaps surprising that the series didn't get an official television show until 1974, though that probably has more to do with the landscape of entertainment media at the time than anything else. 'Zatoichi The Fugitive (1963)' sees its eponymous blind masseur with a price on his head after he defeats a local yakuza gang in a wrestling tournament, eventually finding himself caught in the middle of an underhanded gangland coup. Our protagonist inserts himself into this issue seemingly in an effort to aid a pair of sweethearts whose love it inhibits, perhaps because he doesn't want them to be affected by the same problems that plagued his past - spurred on by the return, in what's basically an extended cameo, of his first love, Otane (last seen in 'The Tale Of Zatoichi Continues (1962)'). As he continues to run afoul of the local mob, the price on his head grows larger and larger, attracting the attention of a rough samurai whose very first appearance almost silently promises a final showdown between the pair. The piece is as character-focused as you'd expect from the series, with themes of love and honour pusling through its veins. Though Zatoichi is almost constantly opposed to killing and even goes out of his way to fulfil the final wishes of those he has to dispatch, the flick has a rather high body count. Its action alternates between suspenseful and exciting, especially in its aforementioned climactic face-off. The feature is also surprisingly funny. It moves at a decent pace and does a good job of keeping you invested in its proceedings. It does occasionally get a tad confusing (there are a lot of names thrown around and it isn't always clear exactly who everyone is) but this isn't a major issue. Overall, it's an enjoyable affair throughout. 7/10.

this is one of the so-so add-on(s) of this 'blind swordsman' series. after couple of the prequel and sequel in black and white, it suddenly turned into a colored one. but there were many flaws in this series that by nowadays standard, they were so obvious and inevitably decreased the greatness of this series:

1) In this follow-up film, Zatoichi's short hairdo suddenly fashioned in modern cut. his short hair was trimmed so evenly and nicely and blow dry up and held on his head firmly. a wandering Yakuza blind masseur would have such fashion taste to have his hairdo nicely treated in an expensive saloon was beyond my comprehension.

2) The fighting scenes looked more false and phony once in colors. the swords never cut open the clothes and no blood was splashed all over the places, even when cut by Zatoichi's sword and fell into the pond, no blood ever showed up in the water, yet when Zatoichi was cut by his opponent's sword, his arm would have blood. but judging by where it was cut, the artery on his arm should have cut deeply and the blood would never be so easily to be stopped. but the worst effect of such synchronized swords fighting was those clothes never being slashed open and no blood appeared whatsoever, it just looked so fake and unconvincing, more like the stupid productions of Chinese 'Shaw Brothers' Kung-Fu movies, all of them just looked so stupidly fake and moronically synchronized.

3) For a blind man, no matter how sensitive his hearing ability, there's no way he could have detected the positions and locations of so many enemies around him. but Zatoichi seemed to have the supernatural power to rightly detect his enemies' locations and where to lodge and cut his opponents' bodies. the most unconvincing flaw of Japanese samurai movies was the sudden stop in action when one of the guys was cut and the others just stood around to await the next synchronized movement. it seems when all the people surrounding their targeted person would allow the guy to finish the fatal cut of their comrades to be completed thoroughly and then to start the next fighting sequence. this is such a unbearable fake scene almost appeared in every Japanese samurai movie.

4) When a hunting rifle was implemented in this film, the primitive long gun seemed to be very easily reloaded. by judging this movie series era, the primitive rifle would need fuse to ignite the gun powder to push a round bullet ball out of the barrel, it would need gun powder to be stuffed into the barrel and chamber first then inserted the lead ball bullet to complete the reload, yet in this film and all the other series, the rifle simply operated so modern than what we usually saw in the fighting scenes of the American Civil War.

The screenplay of this film is just too bland and lukewarm to make this particularly a great and memorable one.

Masseur Ichi, the Fugitive (1963)

*** (out of 4)

The blind swordsman Ichi (Shintaro Katsu) angers a large yakuza after defeating them in a wrestling match, which will lead to a bigger fight. Directed by Tokuzo Tanaka. This here was my second film in the series and while I enjoyed most of the first one, this one here just doesn't cut it. There's way too much talking going on and none of it is even mildly interesting. Even worse is that the actual swordfights are rather lame as well. The concept of a blind swordsman is really the only thing that keeps this film (and perhaps series?) afloat.

This fourth Zatoichi film in fourteen months

The recurrence of a lost love might have made for an interesting change of pace, and change of tone for this series, but that mostly takes second stage to a contrived, yet shallow, story of redemption, without much resolution.

The climactic battles are reasonably good here, but it all feels alternately a bit too choreographed, and poorly choreographed, as the innumerable thugs all seem to politely wait their turn to attack Ichi, who barely gives them a passing glance, before they fall over dead, bloodlessly, and without even so much as a tear to their clothing.

I found the sake bottle scene to be too silly of a gimmick, like the slicing of candles with his sword, as well.

Still watchable, though, but a drop in quality from the earlier installments.

One might mistake this for the first Zatôichi in colour, so bold are the colours during the opening credits that they'd challenge even Imamura's hyper-lush "Kamigami no yakubo" (1968).

What the films achieve wonderfully is that they still allow the necessary plotting to take its time. In modern fare I think we'd be having all the quiet moments and hesitations removed, let alone all the human drama. Thus the film really has genuinely suspenseful moments and genuine drama. Otane reappears, and we are allowed to see a loose end tied in the drama.

I'm going through the films in chronological order just now. It will be interesting to see where the series goes as it matures; these early films have all been very brilliant.