Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman Vol. 3 - DVD Review

Posted by Mack at 8:06pm.

Posted in Film & DVD Reviews , Comedy, Martial Arts, Drama, Action, Asia.

Apologies to Media Blasters for sitting on this review for a while. Katana goodness continues to abound in the third volume of the excellent television cult classic Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman. Volumes One and Two reviews can be found in our archives. All three volumes can be found in the Twitch DVD Store [One, Two and Three and volume Four is up for pre-order.

The third volume of Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman picks up where the last volume left off. Zatoichi roams the land looking for work as a masseur, defending the helpless and inflicting and dealing out justice upon yakuza gangs with a flash of his blade. The ante is stepped up as the sequences get more creative and fountains of blood erupt on the screen. Okay, one fountain of blood. But it’s still pretty darn cool for a television series. And though I felt that one of the episodes in the 2-disc set was weaker than the other three the series stills maintains it’s ethos of justice for the little guy.

8 Simple Rules to Watching Zatoichi
1. There is always plenty of Sake.
2. Every outpost is controlled by Yakuza.
3. There will be at least two melees per episode, the second one being the climactic battle. The first one is just to get the bee hive buzzing.
4. Whatever parlor trick you can do with a sword Zatoichi can do it better than you.
5. Yakuza bosses are ultimately pretty cowardly and run away most of the time until they get sliced or diced.
6. Zatoichi’s reputation precedes him; however, he’s always invited into yakuza homes. Doesn’t anyone read the newspapers?
7. Though gambling may look fun, ultimately it can incur the wrath of a yakuza gang and you’ll have to fight them off, usually all at once.
8. Speaking of all at once yakuza are very inconsiderate and won’t line up one at a time when it comes to attacking you. You have to be able to fend off more than a handful at once.

Audio: Japanese Language
Subtitles: English subtitles
Length: 180 minutes color
DVD Region 1 NTSC

What follows is an episodic overview. Don’t continue if you don’t want spoilers…

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Reader Comments

Kate 05/15/2006 @ 9:07am

For those living in Toronto Cinematheque Ontario is screening 3 Zatoichi titles in July and August as part of Summer Samurai - 18 Samurai films from July 8 to August 17.

The 3 Zatoichi films are:

Zatoichi on the Road July 25

New Tale of Zatoichi August 4

Zatoichi the Fugitive aka Zatoichi, Crazy Journey August 10.

Summer Samurai and Heroic Grace this summer makes Cinematheque very Twitch friendly.

Oh and Blue Velvet too
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