Word: swordsman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...should we concern ourselves with this hateful tyrant, whose life the movie traces for nearly half a century starting with his immigration to Japan from Korea in 1920? The most obvious reason is that Kim is played by "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, the Japanese actor-director whose blind-swordsman movie Zatoichi won him best-director honors at last year's Venice Film Festival. Shunpei Kim is Kitano's first lead role under another director in more than a decade, and the best performance of an illustrious career. But an equally important force behind what may be this year's best Japanese...
...classic samurai film Yojimbo, rival factions bid for the services of a mercenary who has wandered into town. To which side will this mysterious swordsman give his allegiance? Kazuo Matsui is baseball's yojimbo, a free agent from Japan with more suitors than a Muromachi-era princess. No fewer than nine major league teams-including rivals the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox-are reportedly in the running for the services of the 1.75-m shortstop. The question brewing on hot stoves on two continents is not just where this bat-and-glove for hire will wind...
...back on the Silk Road, this time in Western China (Xinjiang province) 14 centuries ago. Lai Xi (Kiichi Nakai), a Japanese swordsman in the Tang Emperor's court, is assigned to capture and kill "Butcher" Li (Jiang Wen), a once-respected army officer accused of treason because he refused to kill women and children in a raid. Lai Xi and Li make an uneasy truce long enough to escort a general's daughter (Vicky Zhao Wei) and a Buddhist monk to safety. Can they escape the pursuit of evil Master An (Wang Xueqi), the preening aesthete and superslick fighter...
...cinemavens at the Toronto International Film Festival talk about movies with a connoisseur's urgency and will pick a fight over pictures that may never grace a cineplex. Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi, with the star-director playing Japan's legendary blind swordsman, provoked one such debate. Some said it was too faithful to the old Zatoichi movies to be a true Takeshi film, others that it was too Takeshi to be a true Zatoichi. (No matter: the picture still won the People's Choice plebiscite...
...Zatoichi copyright. "Everyone knows I did a lot for Shintaro Katsu," she says now. "I deserve the right to do anything." She already had someone in mind, the only actor and director she believed had the toughness to play Zatoichi and the clout to turn the blind swordsman into an international name: Takeshi Kitano...