Lost in Criterion

Our itinerant samurai expert Donovan H. joins us for this set of three Zatoichi films, giving us some insight into Ichi's sword fighting style and what some of the movies we won't be watching say about Ichi's blindness. As for what we did watch: Kenji Misumi, who directed the first Zatoichi, directs his last two films of the series: Samaritan Zatoichi (1968) and Zatoichi and the Fire Festival (1970). While both suffer from the poor scripts that have accompanied many of Misumi's outings, he at least tries to make visually interesting films as he says goodbye to the series, and Zatoichi and the Fire Festival may be a top tier Zatoichi movie because of it (and the naked bathhouse brawl). Between those two, Kihachi Okamoto (The Sword of Doom and Kill!) drags Toshiro Mifune's Samurai with No Name into the Zatoichi universe in the overly long, surprisingly by the numbers Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970)