August 12-18, 2004

movies

Blind Justice

BLOND AMBITION: Kitano's Zatoichi slices and dices.

Takeshi Kitano's sightless swordsman serves up a summer treat.

Zatoichi

by Cindy Fuchs

Early in Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi, the titular blind swordsman passes a field where workers are tilling. A long shot shows their bodies in motion and their hoes striking the ground — ticka-ticka-ticka — as these rhythms are picked up by Keiichi Suzuki's percussive score. For a few odd, precious moments, the universe is in sync.

Such moments recur throughout this peculiarly structured and ridiculously violent film, the latest tale of Kan Shimozawa's legendary swordsman and masseur, hero of over 30 movies and television shows. Kitano's bleached-blond incarnation bears the 57-year-old auteur's remarkable stamp: This Ichi is stoic but delightful, stern but antic, prone to giggling and possessed of Kitano's trademark twitch and deadpan ferocity. As he shapes the character and his environs to suit his own proclivities — hyperstylized violence and an ensemble of quirky characters — Kitano has come up with one of the most flat-out imaginative films to arrive in American theaters this summer.

Ichi (the "zato" means "blind") arrives in a feudal Japanese village where several souls are in turmoil. Their various tragedies serve as fragments in an overarching saga that entangles masterless ronin Hattori (Tadanobu Asano), who takes a job with a local gangster. (His early, brief encounter with Ichi ensures they will battle by film's end.) Ichi's first appearance shows him slicing up a couple of bullies who try to steal his cane with utter efficiency and brutal elegance.

Aside from such displays, Ichi's primary function is to help those in need. Aunt O-Ume (Michiyo Ookusu) invites him to stay at her home. At night, this wholly honorable masseur massages her creaking back. When she mentions that her nephew Shinkichi (Gadarukanaru Taka) is addicted to gambling, Ichi makes the amiable, if confused, young man his next project. This intersects with another, more profound mission, in which Ichi helps geishas O-Kinu (Yuuko Daike) and her transvestite brother, O-Sei (Daigoro Tachibana), to exact vengeance from the gangsters who murdered their parents 10 years past. Flashbacks show that this trauma led to the kids' destitution and O-Sei's prostitution in order to ensure their survival. O-Kinu turns her own distress into a thirst for retribution, and her relentless focus is stunning, even as her brother's charms are formidable. He's no victim in need of rescue; he's happy with who he is.

With scenes arranged out of chronological order (Kitano refers to the organization as "cubism"), the film's narrative connections require some effort, brilliantly rewarded. The finale is its own revelation, a magnificent dance number by a fusion tap troupe called The Stripes (who also play the percussive farmers), complete with appearances by the surviving characters, smiling, dancing, triumphing. It's a wacky, awesome end, at once wholly incongruous and perfectly sublime.

Zatoichi Written and directed by Takeshi Kitano A Miramax release Opens Friday at Ritz Bourse

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