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Zatoichi - Darkness is His Ally Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 10 Reviews)

#26: AN EXCELLENT AND FOND FAREWELL
This 26TH and final Zatoichi episode from 1989 brought an end to this wonderfully long odyssey starring the late Shintaro Katsu. Since the beginning of the series in 1962, Zatoichi defined the humble swordsman who tried to live the Bushido code--only to be foiled by his fellow yakuza; or encountering evildoers who preyed upon the innocent. And as a blind character in the series, all too often Zatoichi too was preyed upon by those who would try and take advantage of a blind man. Only he was no ordinary blind man. Zatoichi's flashing sword brought about swift and exacting vengeance on any who would foolishly attempt to cross paths with him. And this final film was no exception.

This final installment of Zatoichi is an excellent film. The acting and cinematography are outstanding. In this film we find an older and much greyer Zatoichi. The last Zatoichi full-length feature film was in 1973, however, Shintaro Katsu did a television series as Zatoichi with 100 episodes up until 1979. In this film Zatoichi's sword is as lethal as ever. And the ending of the film proves this. We also see Zatoichi being betrayed by a friend due to the price that was placed on his head: One who supposedly lived by the Bushido code.

The action sequences are terrific, and Zatoichi is just as fast as ever. I really liked this final episode of the peace-loving Zatoichi who is content to just be left alone; and yet cannot, due to the fact that he is Zatoichi and his reputation is too great for him to ever be left alone in peace. And more importantly, where the main theme in the film is that once again good-conquers-evil. I highly recommend this film to everyone, and especially to all Zatoichi fans. A must see.

a Great Zatoichi!
I loved this movie! quite the best Zatoichi I've seen. very adult in it's theme, the love scene was the best yet. I also enjoyed the fight scenes. the sense of continuity from the other stories in the Blind Swordsman series is important to me as well and was extremely well done. the character of Zatoichi really lives in this movie.

what I did have a problem with was receiving two defective DVDs in a row.
:(
Amazon was good enough to take them back. but I was scared off of a third replacement.



Fantastic and slow, all at the same time
The attention to detail and the telling of the story moved so dramatically slow. It actually took me 2 days to watch this movie (I fell asleep the 1rst time, but then again, I am trying to watch it after I get home from work, but I digress).

The movie is very, very well done. The characters are fantastic, the scenery is very nice, and the action scenes are as good as any other movie you could put it up against. The sword fighting scenes are probably close to unmatched in term of precision combined w/gore. Very, very nice.

The problem is there is a lot of time between fight scenes, and two of the fight scenes are very similar. There is probably 4 fight scenes in the whole movie.

But the last fight scene, Ichi vs. about 50 men, makes the whole movie worth watching.

I do strongly recommend renting this movie 1rst, as it may be too slow for some martial arts movie fans.

But if you find yourself falling asleep, and mad at yourself for renting/watching this movie, skip to the last fight sequence; its worth the price of admission alone!!!!!

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