Sunday, June 15, 2014

Zatoichi's Pilgrimage (1966)


Zatoichi :  Shintarô Katsu

Director : Kazuo Ikehiro 

IMDb : 7.3

Grade :   B+

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The movie opens with Zatoichi below deck on a passenger ship. A man steals a wallet and then starts beating up the passengers. Zatoichi tells him to return the wallet.When the man attacks him, Zatoichi cuts off his hand, but doesn't kill him.

Zatoichi then goes to a shrine. He talks to God and tells him: " I never killed anyone because I wanted to. But I don't know why I killed." He goes on to say that he will visit 88 shrines until he gets an answer to his questions, but he doesn't want to kill any more.

Zatoichi is then confronted by a man, Eisore, who tries to kill him and Zatoichi kills him. Zatoichi then follows the man's horse to his house where he is attacked by Eisore's sister, OKichi. Zatoichi doesn't even try to defend himself and is slashed.

Then some men come and talk to Okichi. They ask if Eigoro confronted Zatoichi, but Okichi tells them she doesn't know. When they leave Okichi tells Zatoichi that the local boss, Tohachi, wanted Ichi to kill Eigoro to get him out of the way.

Some of Boss Tohachi's men follow Icho out in to the dark, but that was a  big mistake, they all get slain, Then Tohachi's men tell Okichi she must give up her place and come marry the boss.

The local boss, Gonbei, is doing nothing about Tohachi's plan to take over because he is counting on Ichi taking care of him.

Zatoichi know waht is goin on, but he decides he has to fight to help Okichi. He wants to stop the killing, but he keeps getting dragged back in. It's sort of like High Noon,. Ichi heads out to face Hitachi and his men while everyone else pulls their shutters closed.

Ichi begins chopping down Hitachi's men, while dodging the arrows Hitacho is shooting at him. Then it is just the two of them left. Hitachi does shoot an arrow through Ichi's arm, but then Ichi strikes him down. Then the villagers come out of their homes on to the street.

Hitachi comes out as says goodbye to Ichi and he heads down the road.



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