ZATOICHI

THE HUMAN VEGEMATIC RETURNS
by Craig Reid

Are you sick of Hollywood ripping off Hong Kong action cinema, of repetitious story-boarded sermons of tired computer-generated imagery enhancing an actor's pseudo-fighting ability? Then Miramax's July 23rd release of THE BLIND SWORDSMAN: ZATOICHI will refresh your memory of why we love Asian cinema, bringing back the pleasure and charm of watching films like THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN and any of Akira Kurosawa's classic samurai films.

Zatoichi is a 19th Century blind nomad who makes his living as a gambler and masseur. However, behind his humble facade, he is a master swordsman gifted with a lightning-fast draw and breathtaking precision. Just as Chinese actor Kwan Tak-hing is the incarnate of China's real-life hero Huang Fei-hong in his cinematic exploits, legendary Japanese actor Shintaro Katsu is Zatoichi to the Japanese. Katsu starred as folk-hero Zatoichi in 26 feature films from 1962-1989, his movies so popular that a new one came out bimonthly in 1964 and the screen success inspired over 100 television episodes. No other sword-wielding champion of the underdog comes close to matching Zatoichi's stats.

Similar to Shaolin priests, Zatoichi doesn't enjoy killing and often goes out of his way to avoid it. He despises crooked gamblers and officials but has a soft side for widows and orphans. And in all of his Japanese films and TV shows, he never dies, except at the "hand" of the One-armed Swordsman in the 1971 Chinese version of ZATOICHI AND THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (aka ZATOICHI MEETS HIS MATCH).

ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN star Jimmy Wong Yu tells me, "It was a requirement that I win, part of the original deal struck between Golden Harvest and the Japanese film company. Because of that film, Katsu and I became very close friends right up until he passed away." As it turns out, this film almost destroyed Wong's career. Stay tuned to kungfumagazine.com for details about this and Wong's early Shaw Brothers days with my exclusive interview with the One-Armed Swordsman/Boxer himself, Jimmy Wong Yu.

When Katsu died in 1997, it was taken for granted in Japan that the Zatoichi series was finished. Katsu adapted it to his outsized rumpled personality as snugly as a well-worn pair of slippers. Only a truly audacious risk-taker would be foolhardy enough to accept the challenge of stepping into a persona that had been so indelibly established.

Enter writer-director "Beat" Takeshi Kitano. Best known for his gripping yakuza gangster films and as a famous comedian, only Kitano would dare to put down his guns and pick up a sword. Kitano was asked to write and direct a new Zatoichi film by his friend Chieko Saito, a grandmotherly strip-club entrepreneur who had acquired the rights to the character from Katsu as collateral on a loan. He was given carte blanche, within clearly defined limits, to re-invent the character in his own short-spoken and sardonic image.

Kitano shares, "Zatoichi is one of the most popular heroes in Japanese cinema. I think everybody in Japan knows this character. But because it's been over 10 years since a film about Zatoichi has been made, there are now many younger Japanese who aren't as familiar with him. I hope my film will give them the opportunity to get to know him.

"When Madame Saito asked me to do a Zatoichi sequel," he recalls, "it sounded interesting; but when she asked me to play him, I panicked. But she wouldn't take no for an answer. I finally gave in on one condition: I could make the film the way I wanted. As long as Zatoichi was a blind masseur, dice-gambling genius, and a master swordsman, everything else would have to be entirely my own creation. Surprisingly, she agreed."

Kitano was first seen in the West as the brutal WWII prison camp enforcer who uttered the title phrase to David Bowie in MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE (1983), then in JOHNNY MNEMONIC (1994), starring Keanu Reeves. He's also recognized for his stalwart sensei character in the gay-themed samurai epic TABOO (1999), in which he co-starred with his future ZATOICHI co-star Tadanobu Asano, and for his role in the controversial BATTLE ROYALE (2000), where Kitano played the stone-faced supervisor of a futuristic reality game in which teenage contestants are marooned on an island to fight each other to the death.

The Zatoichi movies are categorized as violent-action chambara (samurai) films. The term is an onomatopoeia for the sound of a sword slicing through clothing. However, in genre terms, the Zatoichi stories are more like yakuza gangster films than typical samurai movies. Kitano took as his jumping off point the first film, THE STORY OF ZATOICHI (1962), a simple tale of gang warfare in which the two top mob bosses in a small town prepare to go head to head for ultimate dominance.

So in Kitano's version, when Zatoichi enters a remote mountain town he discovers that the Ginzo gang are extorting the townsfolk with the aid of a mighty Samurai Ronin, Hattori (Tadanobu Asano). Zatoichi then meets two mysterious geishas (Daigoro Tachibana and Yuko Daike) who have sworn to avenge their parent's deaths. As the Ginzo gang tightens their hold on the town, the stage is set for a violent and bloody confrontation.

The fact that Zatoichi earns most of his living as a gambler instantly labels him as a denizen of the yakuza universe. In fact, as Kitano explains, "The terms 'yakuza' signifies '8-9-3,' a combination of dice in gambling which adds up to zero. So 'ya-ku-za' is the losing combination in betting. By choosing it as a nickname the gangsters of the Edo period were acknowledging that they were useless."

The samurai, in contrast, were the absolute upper crust of the rigid society of 19th century feudal Japan, and Kitano makes the yawning gulf between the classes crystal clear in a sequence in which two samurai attempt to ambush and kill Zatoichi, a man of the lower class, merely to test the cutting edge of a new sword, an act that was perfectly permissible under the laws of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The pathos of the classic ronin (masterless) samurai, like the title character in Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO, or Hattori (Asano) in this film, is that they have been expelled from a niche in the power structure that defined their entire being.

Using a translator, Asano tells, "As a kid, I grew up watching the chambara TV shows with my grandmother, and when I became an actor, I truly respected Kitano and always wanted to work with him, regardless of the project. When I was asked to be in ZATOICHI with Kitano acting and directing, I was overwhelmed. He's one of my heroes, so it was a no brainer for me. However, I would add Jack Nicholson in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST is what inspired me to become an actor. I was so fascinated and intrigued by the situation he was forced into and the challenges as an actor, and as his character, he had to face."

Asano was born in Yokohama in 1973. Besides his work in TABOO, he is mostly known to Asian film fans for his roles in the ultra-violent gangster movie ISHI THE KILLER.

"I practice karate but not kendo, Asano admits, "so in preparation for this film, we practiced for three months prior to shooting, did a lot of rehearsing and of course I practiced a lot on my own. I actually got a taste of kendo in TABOO but didn't keep at it, so it was like starting over. Because you see, we're only learning the movements for film; we're not learning or trying to understand the code of bushido. It was important to understand the emotion and motivation behind the characters, to perfect the sword fighting and to also know the inside of what is to be done. To me, the mentality of Hattori."

So although the film is similar in plot to the original ZATOICHI, Zatoichi has a new look, a distinctive red cane and a shock of platinum blonde hair.

"I saw no point in impersonating Katsu's Zatoichi," Kitano says, "I set out to create a new version that would be as different as possible both physically and psychologically. The first thing I decided was my Zatoichi would be blonde. So I dyed my hair blonde one year before shooting began, to help the Japanese public get used to the idea. Everyone was surprised at first, then after continued TV appearances they got used to me looking blonde and me warning them that Zatoichi would be too.

"Why blonde? I imagined he was Eurasian, that's why everyone mistreats him. Since he's mistreated, he learns the sword. It's not farfetched since Dutch explorers and Christians arrived in Japan in 1543. It also visually looks good."

Another visual sign Kitano manipulated to help set his version apart from Katsu's was Zatoichi's most familiar prop: the lethal sword concealed in his blind man's cane. "Katsu used a dirty white cane sword," Kitano recalls. "It was right for the old films, which were often in black and white, but it wasn't right for today's color films. With Zatoichi being blonde, wearing a blue kimono and green sash, a blood red cane seemed to be the right color for the cane sword."

What Kitano found most trying was playing the entire role with his eyes closed. "Usually when I have a lot of dialogue, I have cue cards. But I couldn't do that here. It was even tougher to perform the sword movements with my eyes closed. Sometimes I didn't know where I was swinging my sword," he giggles. "Even just walking straight was hard. I had my share of stumbles and falls. I couldn't tell the distance between me and my co-stars, and couldn't see their expressions or actions when acting with them. It was tougher than I expected."

Kitano put a lot of emphasis on realism, particularly the fight scenes, which have startling savagery and suddenness. Digital effects were sparingly used to embellish action sequences that were staged as realistically as possible by the actors themselves, without wires, trampolines, or stunt doubles. "The techniques used in most Japanese chambara swordplay films are completely different from real combat," Kitano insists. "In reality, Japanese kendo swordfights are very brief. I wanted to use traditional techniques slightly modified to adapt them to cinema."

So what was it like fighting against the "blind" Kitano and how were the fights therefore different from the other samurai films Asano has done? Asano smiles and nods (we did this a lot since we were both relying on a translator). "In TABOO, the fighters paid a lot of detail to each mannerism of the movements where for example the director was very specific about how, say, the tip of the sword, would be directed and at what camera angle. In ZATOICHI, we didn't pay attention to those details but instead to the speed and swiftness of the sword movement during the choreography. It was also essential that we always had contact with the opponent. Kitano also wanted a specific rhythm with his fights, something he learned from stage performance. The whole "rhythm" thing was inherent in other aspects of the film. If you watch the film, you'll know what I mean by that.

"With Kitano's eyes closed, the fighting was tricky at first. At the last showdown scene I did with him, there weren't many movements in the fight so it wasn't so much about choreography, but more about the intensity and emotions expressed during the fight. And surprisingly, I didn't suffer too many injuries. It just shows how good Kitano is."

There is little known of Zatoichi's past and how he became blind. In ZATOICHI TRAVELS OVERSEAS (1966) there's a scene showing him as a sighted child playing at the seashore, and in ZATOICHI ESCAPES FROM PRISON (1967) he blurts, "I've been blind for as long as I can remember, I choose not to see." However, not only does Kitano borrow this remark from the 1967 film but he also takes a small moment from the final sequence of the 1962 original as a cue for creating another of the new Zatoichi's most startling visual effects: In most of his appearances as Zatoichi, Shintaro Katsu indicated the character's blindness by rolling his eyes back in the sockets until only the whites showed. But in the first film of the series he briefly allowed us to see his eyes full on, in a scene in which the blind swordsman angrily curses out one of the gangsters.

"The very end of the film was my only counterattack against the instructions I was given regarding the character of Zatoichi," Kitano confesses. "Sometimes I'm rebellious, can't follow the rules. But the ending can be interpreted in many ways. Some people will come out thinking that Zatoichi was never blind at all. Some people will think he was. Both interpretations are allowed."

Written by Craig Reid for KUNGFUMAGAZINE.COM

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