Lost in Criterion

Our penultimate Zatoichi episode brings us one that is possibly the best Zatoichi movie, one that is not quite the most middling of the middle ones, and one that is quite probably the most infuriating movie the Criterion Collection has made us watch so far.

Zatoichi and the One Armed Swordsman (Mimiyoshi Yasuda, 1971) is probably a metaphor for international relations as we see Ichi meet Shaw Brothers' wuxia hit The one Armed Swordsman travel through time and over seas to have a lot of misunderstandings due to the language barrier. Zatoichi at Large (Kazuo Mori, 1972) has perhaps the best pre-credits sequence of any movie ever and then settles into a rushed and blase tale of people failing to communicate even through there is no language barrier. And Zatoichi in Desperation (1972) sees star Shintaro Katsu step into the directors' chair much to the detriment of the series and our mental health.