The longest Zatoichi film so far and it definitely feels like it too. Zatoichi feels very out of character here, almost like he was a different character plopped into a story where "a" yojimbo but not "the" yojimbo is present. Further adding to things feeling "off" is a young female character whose name doesn't start with "O". That feels criminal to me

The longest Zatoichi film so far and it definitely feels like it too. Zatoichi feels very out of character here, almost like he was a different character plopped into a story where "a" yojimbo but not "the" yojimbo is present. Further adding to things feeling "off" is a young female character whose name doesn't start with "O". That feels criminal to me

For an epic crossover, it was kind of drab and not super enticing like Zatoichi or Yojimbo. Mifune isn't utilized to his standards, and everything else is just fine.

Its just fine.

For an epic crossover, it was kind of drab and not super enticing like Zatoichi or Yojimbo. Mifune isn't utilized to his standards, and everything else is just fine.

Its just fine.

For an epic crossover, it was kind of drab and not super enticing like Zatoichi or Yojimbo. Mifune isn't utilized to his standards, and everything else is just fine.

Its just fine.

For an epic crossover, it was kind of drab and not super enticing like Zatoichi or Yojimbo. Mifune isn't utilized to his standards, and everything else is just fine.

Its just fine.

Not one of my favs, but naturally still a great time
Mifune delivers a well decent performance, which is allows Katsu to take Ichi’s charisma to new levels for the first 40 mins or so 
Then the plot starts becoming more and more convoluted to the rest of the films slight decline 

There were some really good moments of course, good action, but it became hard to enjoy them as the film went on
For me it got progressively worse and worse, setting really interesting things up and then skipping out the parts that would be most interesting 
This made for a lowk annoying watch

But wow the highlights of this is definitely Okamoto’s direction 
Brought new life to some scenes that would otherwise be really dull in less intricately crafted films
Definitely hard carried this as it meant I didn’t mind being a bit let down by most narrative decisions 

Fun seeing these two on screen together, but overall one of my least favourite so far

Not one of my favs, but naturally still a great time
Mifune delivers a well decent performance, which is allows Katsu to take Ichi’s charisma to new levels for the first 40 mins or so 
Then the plot starts becoming more and more convoluted to the rest of the films slight decline 

There were some really good moments of course, good action, but it became hard to enjoy them as the film went on
For me it got progressively worse and worse, setting really interesting things up and then skipping out the parts that would be most interesting 
This made for a lowk annoying watch

But wow the highlights of this is definitely Okamoto’s direction 
Brought new life to some scenes that would otherwise be really dull in less intricately crafted films
Definitely hard carried this as it meant I didn’t mind being a bit let down by most narrative decisions 

Fun seeing these two on screen together, but overall one of my least favourite so far

This movie was the reason I checked out Zatoichi to begin with, as Yojimbo is one of my all time favourite movies. Unfortunately this is completely unrelated to the 2 Akira Kurosawa movies aside from the casting choice of Toshiro Mifune, his character is very different despite playing a similar role. Also nice to hear a score by Akira Ifukube, who I have been a fan of for years due to composing many Godzilla movies.
While the plot is a little hard to follow and it does have pacing issues, it's still worth while for Toshiro Mifune mocking the guy for calling him "sensei" constantly.
A decent fun time, but nothing ground-breaking, but that's to be expected of a 20th entry to a franchise that only started 8 years previously.

This movie was the reason I checked out Zatoichi to begin with, as Yojimbo is one of my all time favourite movies. Unfortunately this is completely unrelated to the 2 Akira Kurosawa movies aside from the casting choice of Toshiro Mifune, his character is very different despite playing a similar role. Also nice to hear a score by Akira Ifukube, who I have been a fan of for years due to composing many Godzilla movies.
While the plot is a little hard to follow and it does have pacing issues, it's still worth while for Toshiro Mifune mocking the guy for calling him "sensei" constantly.
A decent fun time, but nothing ground-breaking, but that's to be expected of a 20th entry to a franchise that only started 8 years previously.