Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970)

Original title

座頭市と用心棒

Directed by

Kihachi Okamoto

Genre

crossover fiction

Country

Japan

Runtime

1h 55m

Rating

6.8 of 10 from 81 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A blind swordsman and a wandering samurai with conflicting interests cross paths in a town full of criminals. Their uneasy relationship leads to a series of clashes and reluctant alliances.

stoicwrypensiveconfrontationalclassicdeliberateatmosphericdry

What happens

Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (Japanese: 座頭市と用心棒) is a 1970 Japanese drama film directed by Kihachi Okamoto. It is the 20th of a series of films featuring the blind swordsman Zatoichi. The main character is based on a fictional character, a blind masseur and swordmaster. He was created by novelist Kan Shimozawa and set during the late Edo period (1830s and 1840s). In this film, actor Toshiro Mifune plays a similar character to Sanjuro, the rōnin (masterless samurai) in Akira Kurosawa's famous film Yojimbo (1961). Although Mifune is clearly not playing the same man (his name here is Daisaku Sasa, and his personality and background differ in many key respects), the film's title and some of its content connect him to the character, the Ronin with No Name, and the idea of the two iconic jidaigeki characters confronting each other (Machibuse, made in the same year, also stars Mifune in a role similar to that of Yojimbo). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• The Invisible Swordsman (1970)
• Crimson Bat (1969)
• Kanto Street Peddlers: Royal Temple Duel (1970)
• Zatoichi the Outlaw (1967)
• Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival (1970)
• Yojimbo (1961)
• Zatoichi's Vengeance (1966)
• Zatōichi (2003)