Word: zatoichis
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...voiced by John Witherspoon, who appears to be channeling his character from “The Wayans Brothers”) gets beaten up by a blind man and challenges him to a rematch. The narrative proceeds to an anime-style tangent comparing the blind man to legendary cinematic swordsman Zatoichi. He is subsequently dubbed the “blind N_____ Samurai...
...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...
...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 is Takeshi Kitano's first foray into directing a samurai film, but he's long been familiar with deadly weapons. A look at Kitano's best?and bloodiest?movies...
...Tokyo stage, where the Stripes were performing routines from the film. A crowd of young things stomped along while the Stripes tapped in a blue-lit fever dream. Shintaro Katsu's shuffling samurai couldn't have felt further away?or so close. For all their differences, the two Zatoichis share the same spirit as their creators: independent, charismatic, innovative. Kitano's Zatoichi succeeds, not by obliterating Katsu's character but by giving it a new Beat. The winning result (the film had critics swooning at the Venice Film Festival last week) is as cutting edge and timeless as the samurai...