But there’s still enough “Beat” in Kitano for him to retain his impish streak. In “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi,” more so than any other Kitano film save for the little-known “Getting Any?,” a gag is ...

For years, the Japanese cinema cranked out samurai adventures about a blind swordsman named Zatoichi. As a job description, “blind swordsman” does not sound reassuring, but it’s a gimmick that has ...

I admit it. What I don’t know about samurai or martial arts flicks would fill up a thousand Thomas Video stores. I snobbishly dismissed the genre as cartoonish, over-the-top drivel geared toward ...

When I was in high school 20-something years ago, I would get up early every Saturday to watch Zatoichi movies on cable. One of Japan’s longest-running film series (seriously, think the Marvel movies ...

“The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi” begins life as a straight-up samurai movie, evolves into a slapstick comedy and ends as a rousing, tap-dancing musical. That may sound clunky, but writer-director ...

Those in the mood for a bit of authentic swordplay (sans Tom Cruise, that is) would do well to catch Zatoichi #4: The Fugitive this Saturday night. In this 1963 episode of the renowned Japanese film ...

Blind swordsman Zatoichi, jailed briefly, is implored by another prisoner to aid him in proving his innocence of a crime for which he is sentenced to death. Zatoichi is reluctant to get involved, ...

Zatoichi is a long-running Japanese media franchise following the adventures of a blind samurai. Because there are few things as cool as someone who can't see that's slicing the shit out of the ...

The official title is just ZVP, but this is actually Zatoichi vs Predator - but since it's fan-made and all for fun, he can't call it that due to IP rights. In feudal Japan, blind Swordsman Zatoichi ...