Post by Nirsao on Jan 17, 2006 0:06:42 GMT -1
Also known as "Zatoichi (International English Title)"
Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano, Michiyo Ogusu, Yui Natsukawa, Guadalcanal Taka, Daigoro Tachibana, Yuko Daike, Ittoku Kishibe, Saburo Ishikura, Akira Emoto
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Running Time: 116 minutes
Action, Comedy, Drama
Takeshi 'Beat' Kitano is a director of many colours. The films for which he is best known in the West are his existential yakuza dramas ('Violent Cop', 'Boiling Point', 'Sonatine', 'Hana-Bi', 'Brother'), with their controlled pace and their sudden explosions of violence; but in his native Japan he is much better known as a stand-up comic, and he has also made some fine comic-melancholic films ('A Scene at the Sea', 'Kids Return', 'Kikujiro'); while the poetic sensibility always evident in the background of his films came right to the fore in Dolls, his recent arthouse outing on desire and loss. Now, Kitano's first period piece, 'Zatoichi', allows him to bring together all his skills into an entertaining, and slightly bewildering, combination of lightning action, knockabout humour and stylish surrealism.
The hero Zatoichi, a blind masseur and master swordsman wandering through eighteenth century Japan, was played by the late Shintaro Katsu in twenty-six different films from the early 1960s to the late 1980s. In reviving so popular a character, Kitano does not stray from the earlier films' proven formula - Zatoichi is still defending innocent village farmers from gangsters and samurai with his phenomenally precise bladework, while occasionally indulging his love of gambling (with invariable success) - but where the new film differs from its predecessors is both in the far more graphic nature of its fight sequences (full of CGI-enhanced blood-letting), and in Kitano's own mesmerisingly low-key performance. His dyed-blonde Zatoichi is all guttural grunts and guffaws, as laconic in his speech as he is economic in his movements, part clown, part powderkeg, part enigma.
Like Kurosawa's 'The Seven Samurai' (to which due homage is paid in one rainswept swordfight), Kitano's 'Zatoichi' shows an assured mastery of mixed tones. The intensity of the confrontations is offset by broad comedy, the light handling of the gangsters is counterbalanced by the more tragic story arc of the ronin-for-hire Hattori (played by indie superstar Tadanobu Asano) and his consumptive wife (Yui Natsukawa) - and in the background of the story's often complicated intrigues and flashbacks are a wealth of pleasingly irrational, inconsequential flourishes, be it the four farmers who hoe a field in precise rhythm to the film's techno soundtrack, or the screaming, half-naked fellow who charges by every so often brandishing a spear at nobody in particular, or the tap-dancing festive finale.
As a blind man with sharper perceptions than his opponents, and a lowly vagabond masseur who can outclass any samurai, Zatoichi has always been something of a paradox - but in Kitano's film, paradox is allowed to take central stage. Amidst a flurry of disguised identities, cross-dressing characters, concealed histories and carnivalesque capers, Zatoichi is far from alone in being other than he seems, and a certain amount of second sight is required to see just who is who and what is what. Yet Kitano never forgets to entertain, making his 'Zatoichi' a genuine, if eccentric, crowd-pleaser.
DVD Extras: Scene selection; choice of Dolby 5.1/2.0 stereo/dts; optional English subtitles; making-of documentary (40min) featuring behind-the-scenes footage for all the main set-pieces (including a helpful sub-titled commentary by Mark Bryant), interviews with Takeshi Kitano ("it's hard acting with your eyes closed", "comic scenes are indispensable", "traditional Japanese dance isn't very exciting"), Tadanobu Asano (on painful process of learning swordplay techniques), Yui Natsukawa (on fun atmosphere on set), Michiyo Ogusu ("this was a 'Zatoichi' for the 21st century")and Daigoro Tachibana (on difference between stage and screen acting), as well as footage of Kitano's rapturous reception at the 60th Venice International (where 'Zatoichi' won the Silver Lion); trailer; bios/filmographies of Kitano and Asano; stills gallery (divided into production stills/posters/behind-the-scenes).
Starring: Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano, Michiyo Ogusu, Yui Natsukawa, Guadalcanal Taka, Daigoro Tachibana, Yuko Daike, Ittoku Kishibe, Saburo Ishikura, Akira Emoto
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Running Time: 116 minutes
Action, Comedy, Drama
Takeshi 'Beat' Kitano is a director of many colours. The films for which he is best known in the West are his existential yakuza dramas ('Violent Cop', 'Boiling Point', 'Sonatine', 'Hana-Bi', 'Brother'), with their controlled pace and their sudden explosions of violence; but in his native Japan he is much better known as a stand-up comic, and he has also made some fine comic-melancholic films ('A Scene at the Sea', 'Kids Return', 'Kikujiro'); while the poetic sensibility always evident in the background of his films came right to the fore in Dolls, his recent arthouse outing on desire and loss. Now, Kitano's first period piece, 'Zatoichi', allows him to bring together all his skills into an entertaining, and slightly bewildering, combination of lightning action, knockabout humour and stylish surrealism.
The hero Zatoichi, a blind masseur and master swordsman wandering through eighteenth century Japan, was played by the late Shintaro Katsu in twenty-six different films from the early 1960s to the late 1980s. In reviving so popular a character, Kitano does not stray from the earlier films' proven formula - Zatoichi is still defending innocent village farmers from gangsters and samurai with his phenomenally precise bladework, while occasionally indulging his love of gambling (with invariable success) - but where the new film differs from its predecessors is both in the far more graphic nature of its fight sequences (full of CGI-enhanced blood-letting), and in Kitano's own mesmerisingly low-key performance. His dyed-blonde Zatoichi is all guttural grunts and guffaws, as laconic in his speech as he is economic in his movements, part clown, part powderkeg, part enigma.
Like Kurosawa's 'The Seven Samurai' (to which due homage is paid in one rainswept swordfight), Kitano's 'Zatoichi' shows an assured mastery of mixed tones. The intensity of the confrontations is offset by broad comedy, the light handling of the gangsters is counterbalanced by the more tragic story arc of the ronin-for-hire Hattori (played by indie superstar Tadanobu Asano) and his consumptive wife (Yui Natsukawa) - and in the background of the story's often complicated intrigues and flashbacks are a wealth of pleasingly irrational, inconsequential flourishes, be it the four farmers who hoe a field in precise rhythm to the film's techno soundtrack, or the screaming, half-naked fellow who charges by every so often brandishing a spear at nobody in particular, or the tap-dancing festive finale.
As a blind man with sharper perceptions than his opponents, and a lowly vagabond masseur who can outclass any samurai, Zatoichi has always been something of a paradox - but in Kitano's film, paradox is allowed to take central stage. Amidst a flurry of disguised identities, cross-dressing characters, concealed histories and carnivalesque capers, Zatoichi is far from alone in being other than he seems, and a certain amount of second sight is required to see just who is who and what is what. Yet Kitano never forgets to entertain, making his 'Zatoichi' a genuine, if eccentric, crowd-pleaser.
DVD Extras: Scene selection; choice of Dolby 5.1/2.0 stereo/dts; optional English subtitles; making-of documentary (40min) featuring behind-the-scenes footage for all the main set-pieces (including a helpful sub-titled commentary by Mark Bryant), interviews with Takeshi Kitano ("it's hard acting with your eyes closed", "comic scenes are indispensable", "traditional Japanese dance isn't very exciting"), Tadanobu Asano (on painful process of learning swordplay techniques), Yui Natsukawa (on fun atmosphere on set), Michiyo Ogusu ("this was a 'Zatoichi' for the 21st century")and Daigoro Tachibana (on difference between stage and screen acting), as well as footage of Kitano's rapturous reception at the 60th Venice International (where 'Zatoichi' won the Silver Lion); trailer; bios/filmographies of Kitano and Asano; stills gallery (divided into production stills/posters/behind-the-scenes).
