Film Review--The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003)

Zatoichi is a simple man. Most days, he’s just your everyday wandering blind masseuse. But when trouble finds him (and it tends to), he’s a master swordsman ready to fight for whatever cause presents itself. This has been the subject of some twenty five movies since 1962, and it’s a great gimmick. Even at its worst, say in 1990’s Rutger Hauer classic, Blind Fury, it still makes for a lot of fun. The master of Japanese action, Takeshi Kitano’s stab at the formula is smart and funny, with gratuitous violence, just like a Zatoichi movie should be. Every Kitano movie I see makes me want to see more. He is consistently enjoyable in his deconstructions of standardized genres.

In this installment, Zatoichi (played by Kitano, who also directed, wrote and edited the film) wanders into town to find the villagers plagued by a pair of corrupt and greedy gangs. The thugs take his defense lightly, which proves to be fatal when the “masseuse” pulls a sword from his cane and strikes with blazing speed and razor precision. Along the way, he comes along a pair of geisha twins who, after unsuccessfully trying to kill him, ask his help to avenge the murder of their parents. Zatoichi dispatches increasingly tough opponents leading to the final confrontation with a newly hired, and newly married, assassin who is no slouch with a blade himself. Not the most original plot, to be sure but, as with Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, there is a lot of freedom to move with the details. Kitano uses the character as a springboard for a smart, stylish and tongue-in-cheek story that doesn’t reinvent the genre, but has a lot of fun with the conventions inherent in the series.

Kitano is simply a great hero. I haven’t seen a lot of his work outside the samurai or yakuza genres, but he’s perfect in these roles. He is loveable and charismatic as he relishes in killing scores and scores of people. He’s the rare cases of action heroes who can add acting skill to the mayhem and it lends believability that makes people like Keanu Reeves fall far short. Also of note is the great performance of Guadalcanal Taka. He plays the geisha twin who keeps a big secret. He’s brilliant in the role and the most memorable, fun performance in the movie. Everybody’s great, relishing in the bloody madness the whole time.

To me, though, the use of blood is the most interesting part of the movie. All of the bloodshed is done digitally. Ordinarily, I hate computer effects, but it works really well here. There are a couple of instances where the digitization is blatant and jarring, but it is mostly seamless. More importantly, all of these pictures are full of spraying blood and nothing is different here. What is different is that the lack of need for a hose or a barrel to contain the gore. It allows for Kitano’s remarkably kinetic editing style to shine through and gives cinematographer Katsumi Yanagishima the freedom to shoot from crazy angles without the restraint of the effects.

Film Review--Sonatine

Sonatine is the first of Takeshi Kitano's films that I've seen and it certainly didn't wind up being what I had expected. I haven't seen a huge number of Japanese crime films, but I've seen enough to expect some certain elements. In what begins as a story of a crime boss sent to Okinawa to defuse a turf issue, I got some of these elements: bloody shootings, a smarmy hero, and maybe some Yakuza politics. Kitano is funny as the smarmy hero (he also directed, wrote, and edited the film), the shootings are pretty bloody, and there are enough immediately quirky side characters to keep the audience intrigued and amused. There is a sadistic charm in the nonchalance that these killers display in their jobs. It's the kind of black humor where laughing makes you question your sanity and is a welcome change from what can often be an over-serious genre. This whole first part is very well done and would have been a worthy film even if it had stayed this way. Then, things change.

The second act of Sonatine is where things get going and is almost like nothing I've ever seen. Much of the camerawork throughout the film is handled with increasingly slow, drawn out shots, and the story follows suit. Once Kitano and his men get to Okinawa and set up on the beach, they have to wait for the order to begin their operation. This order may take a while, so good thing it's summertime and the weather's nice, because it's time for gangsters to relax!! Frisbee, dancing, sumo, puppy love, all the trappings of an Okinawa summer are in their hands and they soak it up. Here, the movie becomes pure comedy and almost makes you forget that their job will inevitably be to kill a whole bunch of people. It's comes on pretty strong at times, but Kitano displays the same level of ambivalence to these surreal, funny moments as he did to the violent ones and the good-natured, almost childlike innocence makes the the whole experience pleasantly strange.

All good things must come to an end, however and, finally, the group must return to their violent, if still pretty nonchalant ways. The film closes much as it opened, with a bang. Really, a big one. There are a lot of shockingly violent acts here, almost always played to offset some comedy. Neither undermines the other, though, and both aspects add so much to each character. The movie has no essential plot; these people could be doing anything and it wouldn't really make a difference. As characters, these are complete. Kitano gives these people real humanity, where not everything looks cool, and even the smarmiest of heroes can fall in love. Most importantly, the humanity he gives them makes us forget that they are cold-blooded mass murderers. The execution of this is the most difficult part to understand. How he achieves this smooth transition is obscure, but its effectiveness is clear. The Miami Vice-style soundtrack aside, the film is otherwise fantastic and is one of the best of this genre I've seen