You only get one life. You should guard it more carefully.
As I sit here nursing a cold in what I hope are the waning weeks of the most persistently aggressive and depressing winter season in recent memory, I can't help but regard a film like Zatoichi's Revenge as the most basic and satisfying of cinematic comfort foods. Like a steaming hot serving of shepherd's pie... fried chicken... biscuits and gravy... vegan casserole... whatever food hits all the right marks with you - this 10th installment in the Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman series hits all the right notes, delivering a heaping portion of satisfying familiarity with just enough varietal flavor unique to that particular dish to keep you intrigued and savoring each tasty morsel.
This particular serving of the Zatoichi feast that Criterion unleashed upon us last November in that glorious and still mind-boggling 27-disc megabox is distinguished by darker, more aggressive tones than what I found in either of its two predecessors (Fight Zatoichi Fight, practically a wholesome family comedy by comparison, and Adventures of Zatoichi, a bit rougher around the edges but still pretty mainstream and benevolent in its approach.) Zatoichi's Revenge, by comparison, is rather harsh in its depiction of the violence and brutality that resides at the core of this long-running saga. It's almost as if the managers of this franchise caught themselves lapsing dangerously close to a bland homogeneity as the box office dollars continuously rolled in and decided that they would do well to hone the edge of their hero's cane sword, as it were.
As the film's title implies, Zatoichi's Revenge pulls him out of the by-now familiar role of benevolent defender of justice, where he meets up with strangers who have suffered at the hands of evil-doers and assists them in their plight. Here, the feeling is a lot more personal, as he returns to his old stomping grounds, hoping to visit his master teacher Hikanoichi in the town where he first learned the arts of swordplay and massage. Appalled to learn that his old mentor was mercilessly sliced down as he traveled along the open road by an assassin as yet not apprehended, Zatoichi has a more heartfelt stake in the outcome of his latest showdown. Osayo, the surviving daughter of Hikanoichi, has since been taken captive by the corrupted local magistrate and his criminal accomplice who basically have their village locked down in an intractable vice grip. The peasant folk are under all sorts of pressure to pay inflated taxes, bribes and other forms of "protection" fees, and when they fall into debt, their daughters are confiscated and enslaved in the town brothel, which of course is operated by the selfsame magistrate and his cronies. Without quite barging into the S&M territory trail-blazed by Seijun Suzuki's Gate of Flesh or Nagisa Oshima's Pleasures of the Flesh around this time, the beatings endured by the unfortunate women who inhabit that den of misery are still pretty intense and heart-rending. It all amounts to a thoroughly sordid and vile mess that just begs for a noble and purposeful hero to charge in and clean up in short order.
Which of course is exactly what Zatoichi does, and quite satisfyingly, with the enjoyable assistance of a one-off sidekick known as Denroku the Weasel, an accomplished dice-cheat of wavering loyalties but fundamental decency at the end of the day. Director Akira Inoue may not be the most accomplished of the hired hands brought into to helm different episodes in this series, but he throws in some interesting high angle shots here and there and a few sequences featuring more handheld camera action than I recall seeing in the previous films. And when our hero finally delivers that fatal blow that brings the villains to their well-deserved demise, they are forced to grovel really hard and watch their foul empire dismantled before their very eyes, reduced to pathetic begging for their lives, all to no avail. Zatoichi is never anything less than grim when these moments arrive, but in Zatoichi's Revenge, his outrage feels just a bit more palpable, the disgust that drives him more bitter than usual.
Before we get to the big climax, we have to make the obligatory passage through the gambling scene, where he reveals the crooked tricks that always turn the odds irreversibly in favor of the house. There's also the interaction between Ichi and a sweet and still-pure child that gives us all a chance to lament the wretched world that the kid will soon enough grow up into. And of course, no shortage of Shintaro Katsu's impeccably fluent showmanship as he switches from zen-master tranquility to badass fury at the slightest hint of malice directed his way. That shit never gets old, especially when spaced out over the course of a month or two between installments. Watching all these films back to back would feel good for awhile, but get a bit tedious soon enough, just as it would if we found ourselves consigned to chow on the same favorite dinner night after night.
As I sit here nursing a cold in what I hope are the waning weeks of the most persistently aggressive and depressing winter season in recent memory, I can't help but regard a film like Zatoichi's Revenge as the most basic and satisfying of cinematic comfort foods. Like a steaming hot serving of shepherd's pie... fried chicken... biscuits and gravy... vegan casserole... whatever food hits all the right marks with you - this 10th installment in the Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman series hits all the right notes, delivering a heaping portion of satisfying familiarity with just enough varietal flavor unique to that particular dish to keep you intrigued and savoring each tasty morsel.
This particular serving of the Zatoichi feast that Criterion unleashed upon us last November in that glorious and still mind-boggling 27-disc megabox is distinguished by darker, more aggressive tones than what I found in either of its two predecessors (Fight Zatoichi Fight, practically a wholesome family comedy by comparison, and Adventures of Zatoichi, a bit rougher around the edges but still pretty mainstream and benevolent in its approach.) Zatoichi's Revenge, by comparison, is rather harsh in its depiction of the violence and brutality that resides at the core of this long-running saga. It's almost as if the managers of this franchise caught themselves lapsing dangerously close to a bland homogeneity as the box office dollars continuously rolled in and decided that they would do well to hone the edge of their hero's cane sword, as it were.
As the film's title implies, Zatoichi's Revenge pulls him out of the by-now familiar role of benevolent defender of justice, where he meets up with strangers who have suffered at the hands of evil-doers and assists them in their plight. Here, the feeling is a lot more personal, as he returns to his old stomping grounds, hoping to visit his master teacher Hikanoichi in the town where he first learned the arts of swordplay and massage. Appalled to learn that his old mentor was mercilessly sliced down as he traveled along the open road by an assassin as yet not apprehended, Zatoichi has a more heartfelt stake in the outcome of his latest showdown. Osayo, the surviving daughter of Hikanoichi, has since been taken captive by the corrupted local magistrate and his criminal accomplice who basically have their village locked down in an intractable vice grip. The peasant folk are under all sorts of pressure to pay inflated taxes, bribes and other forms of "protection" fees, and when they fall into debt, their daughters are confiscated and enslaved in the town brothel, which of course is operated by the selfsame magistrate and his cronies. Without quite barging into the S&M territory trail-blazed by Seijun Suzuki's Gate of Flesh or Nagisa Oshima's Pleasures of the Flesh around this time, the beatings endured by the unfortunate women who inhabit that den of misery are still pretty intense and heart-rending. It all amounts to a thoroughly sordid and vile mess that just begs for a noble and purposeful hero to charge in and clean up in short order.
Which of course is exactly what Zatoichi does, and quite satisfyingly, with the enjoyable assistance of a one-off sidekick known as Denroku the Weasel, an accomplished dice-cheat of wavering loyalties but fundamental decency at the end of the day. Director Akira Inoue may not be the most accomplished of the hired hands brought into to helm different episodes in this series, but he throws in some interesting high angle shots here and there and a few sequences featuring more handheld camera action than I recall seeing in the previous films. And when our hero finally delivers that fatal blow that brings the villains to their well-deserved demise, they are forced to grovel really hard and watch their foul empire dismantled before their very eyes, reduced to pathetic begging for their lives, all to no avail. Zatoichi is never anything less than grim when these moments arrive, but in Zatoichi's Revenge, his outrage feels just a bit more palpable, the disgust that drives him more bitter than usual.
Before we get to the big climax, we have to make the obligatory passage through the gambling scene, where he reveals the crooked tricks that always turn the odds irreversibly in favor of the house. There's also the interaction between Ichi and a sweet and still-pure child that gives us all a chance to lament the wretched world that the kid will soon enough grow up into. And of course, no shortage of Shintaro Katsu's impeccably fluent showmanship as he switches from zen-master tranquility to badass fury at the slightest hint of malice directed his way. That shit never gets old, especially when spaced out over the course of a month or two between installments. Watching all these films back to back would feel good for awhile, but get a bit tedious soon enough, just as it would if we found ourselves consigned to chow on the same favorite dinner night after night.
Next: Alphaville
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