Zatoichi meets the One Armed Swordsman (1971)

When a caravan bearing the royal seal comes down the road everyone must clear out of the way or be punished.  So when a small Chinese boy chases his kite into the road the Samurai guarding the caravan go to kill him, but end up killing his parents who try and protect him.  What the Samurai don’t realize is that traveling with them is a one armed master of both the sword and Kung Fu named Wang Kong.  He quickly dispatches the guards who cut the family down and leaves as more Samurai arrive.  The Samurai kill all the witnesses to avoid the shame of failing to “protect” the caravan and blame the slaughter on the swordsman.  Zatoichi comes along later and finds the boy, and of course takes him away from the carnage.  Later on Wang Kong comes to believe that Zatoichi, who was actually helping him, betrayed him and after mowing thru many Yakuza (as always) they end up having it out.  Has Zatoichi finally met his match in the Kung Fu of Wang Kong? 

I really love this series of movies and Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman is one of my favorite characters in Japanese cinema.  If anything could be cooler than a Zatoichi movie, it would be one with some Kung Fu in it.  But I’ll talk more about that later.  This installment boasts another strong story that quickly introduces the characters, sets up the situation and gets to the good stuff, which is the fighting.  Here early on it is mostly the Wang Kong doing his thing, but fear not we do get to see Zatoichi in action.  This movie is a blast from beginning to end without ever missing a beat.  I’m not sure if it is the addition of another “hero” like Wang Kong, but there isn’t much time given to the character development.  This hurts the performances a bit, especially Shintarô Katsu, who isn’t given as much screen time to develop the Zatoichi character as he normally does.

The focus on more action with less time on the characters doesn’t hurt the movie too bad.  In fact the movie plays more like a Kung Fu movie, with the crazy fight choreography that comes with it.  For example there the superman leaps where Wang Kong leaps up the side of a hill in one jump, or how he is able to run on the heads and shoulders of his enemies.  This isn’t normally the kind of thing you would see in a Zatoichi movie, but here is it sort of a fun change.  Especially since we still get the great Blind Swordsman fights as well where he mows down another batch of Yakuza.  Heck if anything it almost seems that they ramped up the action a bit. 

Overall this movie is a blast.  Is it my favorite of the series?  No, but it is a nice change of pace and a good time.  This movie is available from AnimEigo as a single DVD, but I recommend the Blind Swordsman box set, which has seven movies from the series in it. Check out the AnimEigo website for details at http://www.animeigo.com/

3 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2009 John Shatzer