As the Zatoichi films start to grapple more with the character of the blind swordsman, they start to be a lot more stingy with the action sequences. This isn’t a bad thing too much of the time, and that is definitely the case with Zatoichi’s Cane Sword which has Zatoichi spend most of the movie without his iconic weapon. Giving up his sword to a blacksmith who was the pupil of the master who made it, Ichi seems like he’s set to give up on a life by the blade for good, being set up as a live-in masseuse for an inn. It’s so much fun to see this side of Ichi, a side that thinks that perhaps if he simply didn’t have the sword that he would be able to live freely, but this quickly proves not to be the case as there are people who need help around him and he is uniquely capable of solving those problems. Not every conflict can be solved through talking, especially when intimidation is a huge part of negotiation in this time period. The focus on character may not give a lot in the way of visuals, but the little moments when they do come into play, they hit pretty damn hard to emphasize the emotional beats rather than the action
As the Zatoichi films start to grapple more with the character of the blind swordsman, they start to be a lot more stingy with the action sequences. This isn’t a bad thing too much of the time, and that is definitely the case with Zatoichi’s Cane Sword which has Zatoichi spend most of the movie without his iconic weapon. Giving up his sword to a blacksmith who was the pupil of the master who made it, Ichi seems like he’s set to give up on a life by the blade for good, being set up as a live-in masseuse for an inn. It’s so much fun to see this side of Ichi, a side that thinks that perhaps if he simply didn’t have the sword that he would be able to live freely, but this quickly proves not to be the case as there are people who need help around him and he is uniquely capable of solving those problems. Not every conflict can be solved through talking, especially when intimidation is a huge part of negotiation in this time period. The focus on character may not give a lot in the way of visuals, but the little moments when they do come into play, they hit pretty damn hard to emphasize the emotional beats rather than the action
