Zatoichi doesn’t need new moves and yet the series keeps finding new ways to surprise me with his character and his stories, even as they maintain the same story structure throughout. Zatoichi and the Chess Expert feels so intimate compared to a lot of the prior Zatoichi films. A lot of its scenes take place in smaller indoor environments with a lot of care taken to showcase the actors. This gives them a lot of freedom in their performances, which in turn heightens the emotional weight of the story. The tale of revenge that weaves within the story as Zatoichi grapples with different struggles of mortality and romance is so interesting, essentially giving a new character the kind of role that Zatoichi was serving prior, this time with a target much closer to the audience than in other films. It creates a complicated conclusion where the right thing is the hard thing. How do you strike down who you know so easily? Can you?

Zatoichi doesn’t need new moves and yet the series keeps finding new ways to surprise me with his character and his stories, even as they maintain the same story structure throughout. Zatoichi and the Chess Expert feels so intimate compared to a lot of the prior Zatoichi films. A lot of its scenes take place in smaller indoor environments with a lot of care taken to showcase the actors. This gives them a lot of freedom in their performances, which in turn heightens the emotional weight of the story. The tale of revenge that weaves within the story as Zatoichi grapples with different struggles of mortality and romance is so interesting, essentially giving a new character the kind of role that Zatoichi was serving prior, this time with a target much closer to the audience than in other films. It creates a complicated conclusion where the right thing is the hard thing. How do you strike down who you know so easily? Can you?

Filled to the brim with brilliant, incredibly interesting ideas and set ups that switch the series up a bit but still keep its heart 
Unfortunately, few of them stick around for long or don’t stick the landing
The chess expert is without a doubt the greatest character we’ve seen (other than Ichi) and has a compelling friendship/ rivalry with Zatoichi that is so fun to watch and you can genuinely invest in
Then he gets somewhat sidelined despite being the key to alllll the other interesting bits 

Ichi messes up at dice, almost forfeits some important medicines/ money etc, is outsmarted AND almost overpowered by some out of the box thinking yakuza 
These are just a few of the interesting places this goes so it’s a shame to see half of them aren’t explored for nearly long enough or slip up towards the end

So fun to see it try tho it’s got me even more excited for the next 14 
Also this is just really quite well made and when it is focussing on a specific plot point and doing it well, it’s doing it very well

Filled to the brim with brilliant, incredibly interesting ideas and set ups that switch the series up a bit but still keep its heart 
Unfortunately, few of them stick around for long or don’t stick the landing
The chess expert is without a doubt the greatest character we’ve seen (other than Ichi) and has a compelling friendship/ rivalry with Zatoichi that is so fun to watch and you can genuinely invest in
Then he gets somewhat sidelined despite being the key to alllll the other interesting bits 

Ichi messes up at dice, almost forfeits some important medicines/ money etc, is outsmarted AND almost overpowered by some out of the box thinking yakuza 
These are just a few of the interesting places this goes so it’s a shame to see half of them aren’t explored for nearly long enough or slip up towards the end

So fun to see it try tho it’s got me even more excited for the next 14 
Also this is just really quite well made and when it is focussing on a specific plot point and doing it well, it’s doing it very well

Something I was originally planning on mentioning in my Zatoichi and the Doomed Man review was that I feel the main reason I'm not enjoying a majority of these films are because their hooks feel ultimately weak to me. The inciting incidents don't draw me in as much as I feel like they should, and in result, I'm not too drawn into any conflict happening. That's not to say that some of them have good inciting incidents, a good chunk of them definitely do, but a majority of them fail to create excitement early on and in result makes the film feel like a chore to sit through. And this one feels like one of those films.

Something I was originally planning on mentioning in my Zatoichi and the Doomed Man review was that I feel the main reason I'm not enjoying a majority of these films are because their hooks feel ultimately weak to me. The inciting incidents don't draw me in as much as I feel like they should, and in result, I'm not too drawn into any conflict happening. That's not to say that some of them have good inciting incidents, a good chunk of them definitely do, but a majority of them fail to create excitement early on and in result makes the film feel like a chore to sit through. And this one feels like one of those films.