It's not that "The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi" lacks gory scenes. When a sightless masseur chops off a gambler's hand, the amputated limb spouts a geyser of blood on par with anything in "Kill Bill." ...

He is also a brilliant swordsman and a successful gambler. Zatoichi comes to a country town dominated by two battling clans who are themselves being replaced by an even more ruthless gang.

Movie geeks may have a few of his Yakuza movies (in 2nd or 3rd hand dubs) in their VHS collection but until the release of Zatoichi amidst high critical acclaim, American audiences have had little ...

When they held auditions for the lead in a new film called The Tale Of Zatoichi (1962), based loosely on an obscure 1948 short story by Kan Shimozawa, Katsu fought for the role, won it ...

The hundred episodes of the TV series followed 1970s TV dynamics: Zatoichi was (mostly) unchanging from one episode to the next, and the 45-minute episodes (allowing for 15 minutes of ...

Star Shintaro Katsu sits in the director's chair for this psychedelic and unremittingly bleak entry in the Zatoichi series, which is unlike any other in its grind-house grimness. A tale of ...

Zatoichi comes upon a dying man who asks him to give a bag of money to "Taichi". Zatoichi has no idea who this is but when he comes upon a small town harassed by gangsters, he finds that "Taichi ...

For years, the Japanese cinema cranked out samurai adventures about a blind swordsman named Zatoichi. As a job description, “blind swordsman” does not sound reassuring, but it’s a gimmick ...

Instead of directing himself as a thug in modern day Japan, Zatoichi turns back the clock and casts Kitano in the role of an unlikely hero: a blind masseur who hides a deadly sword inside his cane.

I was reminded of the gratifying shock-force of Lee’s fleet savagery when I saw The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, in which the director and star, Takeshi Kitano, revives the venerable hero of ...

Here’s how it works. The blind swordsman Zatoichi is to Japanese cinema what James Bond is to American cinema: an iconic hero whose long-running presence has made him a staple of the country’s ...