Zatoichi

[Drunk Monk]

I forgot to mention that there was a Kung Fu villain in Trapped! He had a really odd dao, and did a lot of flying moves. Overall, Crimson Bat feels a little more like a Kung Fu film than Chanbara, especially the soundtrack which sounds like a Carl Stalling hangover.

So I wound up binging on CB last night. Finished the series. It was very enjoyable.

Watch Out, Crimson Bat!
Oichi establishes herself as a bounty hunter, which is a great foil for lots of swordfights. Giants villains are introduced. There's a surreal and incongruous duel - fan vs. throwing daggers - on a performance stage with another female fighter. The plot centers around delivering a scroll with a formula for gun powder, and there's this persistent undertone of WMD issues (after all, Japan was the only country that has actually experienced a nuclear attack). There's a frenemy ronin and two annoying orphan urchins. The fact that Oichi is blind hardly enters into it. It's a convoluted plot but the payout is magnificent. Great fights. Long extended complicated single shot scenes with both the ronin and Oichi laying waste to dozens of yakuza at a time. It's really all about watching Oichi move. She brings a unique grace to her swordwomanship, an ethereal quality like a geisha banshee.

Crimson Bat Wanted Dead or Alive
The final installment in the series, sad to say, although Oichi walks off in the sunset at the end as if to move towards another installment. A forced relocation, a friendly ronin village protector, more villainous yakuza including bounty hunters hunting bounty hunter Oichi (one of which is a giant monk). The fights are great and copious, although fairly bloodless. I was sorry to see it end.

After that, I was itchin for more Ichi, so I started watching Ichi and was quickly reminded that I had seen it before: <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1953">viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1953</a><!-- l -->. I got about half an hour in until I realized it was super late and I should go to sleep.

[cranefly]

Wow. Her acting career ends with four Crimson Bat movies that sound like a lot of fun?

[Drunk Monk]

There's probably more in Japanese but I don't know how to surf in Japanese. Yoko was the face of a brand of instant curry for a while. Born in 1937, she must be still alive as none of the web resources list a death date.

Crimson Bat was a great series. if you only see one, I'd recommend either the second or third installment.

I'm debating about seeking out Blind Fury (Rutger Hauer's spin on the Blind Swordsman). Wiki sez that was based on installment 17.

I disliked the Takeshi Kitano 2003 version. There was also a reboot in 2010 that got little attention.

There was a live stage show done in 2007, directed by Takashi Miike no less. Imagine that.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I thought seeing 'Blind Fury' was a given. I dimly remember it wasn't bad.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Blind Fury was fun.

[Drunk Monk]

It's not available to rent there, nor is it available on Netflix or Hulu+. Maybe I'll find it used.

[Drunk Monk]

A non-Zatoichi Katsu film. He's even the secondary protagonist. A backstory tale of the 47 ronin, with romance, bushido and vengeance. It's long and epically soap opera but gorgeous in tone and scenery. But the bottom line is the swordfights Rock. Long single shots with dynamic camerawork. The climactic finale fight is brilliant, so much so that when the 47 make their move, it's the epilogue and that works fine. How did this gem escape me for so long?

[Drunk Monk]

My memory of Blind Fury was almost negligible.  I only remembered the initial training sequence and the corn field fight.  The rest was completely new to me this time around.  Nice to keep things fresh.  

Wow.  What a flashback to 1989.  The fashion, the soundtrack, the very way the film progressed, took me right back to the MQ6, where ED, LB & I would form a most unholy alliance over jump-scare horror and women-in-prison flicks.  Hauer doesn't really command the role - he's not great at physical comedy - but it is an original take on the Zatoichi role.  The fight scenes are okay for the day - you just can't discredit a Sho Kosugi sword fight finale and extra points for what was clearly the inspiration for the death scene of Darth Maul!  I forgot how enchanting Meg Foster's eyes are.  And Randall 'Tex' Cobb!  The epitome of 80s action villains! Such an odd movie, such a postcard of action cinema from those days.  Delightfully nostalgic. 

About halfway through, I had this weird thought that 'What if Hauer's Uncle Nick character was really a child molester and the whole thing was a scam for him to kidnap the kid?'  That was a creepy messed up take on it.

[King Bob]

As much as my friends and I went to MQ6 and various other places to see crap films, I don't think I ever saw Blind Fury. I'll have to let it go.

[Drunk Monk]

Beyond the movies, there was a 100 episode TV show. I just found Season 2. 

E1: The Keepsake Dolls: This was quite good, like a Zatoichi movie but condensed into 45 min TV episode. Zato honors the request of a dying man, slain in the streets by a local enforcer, to bring some dolls to a child. The child is his daughter of course, and his beautiful widow runs an inn in a town controlled by a gambling boss. Zato defends them when the boss goes out of control, and takes vengeance. 
Great sword fight. DOOM recommended. 

This YouTube channel has all of S2 with subs. It also has a lot of BabyMetal vids. Go figure.

[Drunk Monk]

S2e2: Yearning for Father. Ichi finds a young cutesy brat who follows him to a town with a beautiful boss. Her brother walks the road of vengeance to an elder retired boss who befriends Ichi and the boy. It’s all about Shintaro Katsu. He’s just so good as Ichi. Another Ep that does what most of the movies do in half the time.
More excellent swordfights. DOOM recommended

[Drunk Monk]

There is this prevalent cinematic myth that like Godzilla vs. King Kong, there are two versions of this film.  In the Japanese version, Ichi wins.  In the Chinese version, both die.  I've never found the Chinese version.

The One-Armed Swordsman was a classic Kung Fu flick starring Jimmy Wang Yu, arguably the first Kung Fu superstar although ironically, he was a swimming champion, not a Kung Fu guy.  Personally, I was never that fond of it. I respect it as a pivotal film, but it hasn't held up well over time. Wang's Kung Fu is mediocre at best and to deprive him of one arm made it look even worse choreographically.  There was a remake called Blade many years later that was far superior.  Anyway, you'd think I'd like this one as it is truly a Kung Fu/Chambara hybrid.  Not only the choreography, but even the sound effects are more classic Kung Fu in Wang's fights.  But his choreography is still mediocre.  He does manage a decent fire stunt, which is interesting to consider as back then, fire stunts were real; this predates CGI by decades.  Actually, the miscommunications between Wang's character (named Wang) and Ichi are more amusing than the actual fight because Wang speaks Mandarin throughout the film, and there's a lot of misunderstandings as the two swordsmen try to communicate.  There's another orphaned kid that falls under Ichi's care.  There's also some choice ultravi, a toothpick to the eyeball, an ear-ectomy, a severed sword bearing hand echoed by the Jidai/Jedi in Star Wars.  This is not a stand-out example of Zatoichi flicks.  It's more of a failed attempt to cross-over to the Kung Fu market, a deviant side-note to an amazing film franchise.

On a side note, the music is by Isao Tomita, or as many know him, Tomita.  Tomita also did the soundtrack for Fire Festival, but that film was more over the top so it didn't stand out as much as in this one.  I have fond memories of Tomita's electronic version of Holst's The Planets, but I'm guessing that that has not stood the test of time either. 

Three more to go.  I'm going to savor them.

Watched this again on criterion. There’s surprisingly few Jimmy Wang Yu films across all my streamers. This is at least the 3rd time I’ve seen this, maybe the fourth. 

It struck me as much better than my previous review suggests. I scavenged a lot of my notes here for my JWY retrospective) submitted yesterday and my editor already said he enjoyed it). I scavenged a lot of notes for that piece here. In fact, I pitched it knowing that this would be my resource for reminders.

Now I don’t think it gave this a fair shake because it’s still quite good like all the Ichi flix - maybe JWY’s choreo drags it down but Katsu is on point (or blade) here. Ichi is as tragic as ever but watching him cut down yakuza is so satisfying, even purgative. Man, I luv Ichi. One of my all time favs. And this film is merciless. 

Now I’m wondering if you stab some one, pause, and then rip the blade out rapidly, can you really get an artery to spray like a fountain for a moment…

The finale fight Tomita soundtrack reeks of Sergio Leone, which I wish I had noted here before.

So D00M recommended although there are surely other Ichi films I’d recommend first if you’re new to the franchise.

[Drunk Monk]

The Samurai vs Ninja channel on YouTube is running the Zatoichi TV series - it’s 100 eps that came out from 74 to 79. I reviewed some of s2 earlier but now I’ll start chipping on it from the beginning. These all star Katsu and feel just like the movies although with shorter plots (apparently some eps are extracted from the movies). His character and his swordsmanship are spot on. 

Stacy has premium YT so I can skip the commercials. 

D00M recommended. Start here: 

[Drunk Monk]

S1e3 was tight - like a full Zatoichi film squeezed into under an hour. It had all the key elements of the franchise - stumbling into yakuza oppression, a fierce complex rival demanding a revenge duel, a beautiful yet tragic girl, a vow that must be honored, a heroic mom with a weak son, callus ronin with little skill, slurping bowls of tea and rice, profound elements of melancholy, regret, loneliness and sadness, strange redemptions, and so much more. And most of all, some furious blind swordsman action.

This ep I highly recommend. Katsu is so good at what he does with the character - and the way he wiggles his ears and rolls up his eyeballs is quite amazing. Luvin this show.

[Drunk Monk]

S1e5 is another solid one that manages to compress so many elements of Zatoichi lore into a tight tale under a half hour. Some themes echo the films, the intervention of the drunk gambler selling his daughter into prostitution to clear his debts, the comrade ronins forced to duel by their old samurai ethos,  Ichi hiding from another blind person by just being still when they pass, classic slice & dice fights ending in stillness until all the villains fall and Ichi sheaths his sword (called ‘noto’ which I might default to later - Katsu has beautiful noto skills). 

D00M recommended.