Zatoichi's Vengeance

Zatoichi meets a dying man on the road, who asks Ichi to deliver a parcel of money to his young son. The town is the middle of being taken over by an ambitious yakuza who is extracting unreasonably large protection fees from the villagers. Yes, it's another promise to a dying stranger, another group of children and old people befriended, and another evil gang being shredded, but that's not a bad thing. Katsu's swordplay is as skilled as ever.

Best one yet. Also the first time someone questions Ichi's violent methods and points out its moral issues.

This is a really solid Zatoichi outing ... nothing spectacularly different, but entertaining. Mayumi Ogawa stands out as a prostitute with a secret background who Zatoichi befriends.

Ichi hopes to take a vacation and find peace but instead finds a town overrun by gangsters. Its interesting to watch him accept being a role model and struggling to maintain that image by being non violent. His eventual and inevitable explosion is one of the most picturesque battles of the series. The transition from trying to be "innocent" to being a menacing presence was great work on katsus part.

One of the better entries brings much-needed moral complexity to Zatoichi's decisions and the action is outstanding with the high-point being the silhouette fight. A good couple of steps up from the last few.

This installment does have an interesting supporting character (a blind priest) and one of the more impressively filmed fight sequences (atop a bridge in silhouette, on a two dimensional plane), but sometimes the repetition is too tedious.

Maybe the most satisfying Zatoichi yet. The side story with the priest and Ichi's supposed crisis of conscience might seem to drag the story down a bit, since we know Ichi's obviously going to learn that "Sometimes You Need to Fight!" in the end, but it allows some time for good character development. The central battle, beginning at dusk and continuing through to night, is excellent, and Ichi's eventual strong-arming of the bad guys is particularly badass.