Free Sunday Matinee! Samurai Film: Zatoichi - the Blind Swordsman

Recently, due to the earthquake, tsunami and the subsequent nuclear accident at Fukushima, this blog (and everyone else) has been completely preoccupied with those events. Several regular readers have asked that I start the free Sunday Japanese cinema again.

You asked for it, you got it. Here is a well known story in Japan. It is called Satoichi - the Blind Swordsman. Wikipedia says:

Zatoichi (座頭市 Zatōichi) is a fictional character featured in one of Japan's longest running series of films and a television series set in the Edo period. The character, a blind masseur and swordmaster, was created by novelist Kan Shimozawa (子母澤 寛 Shimozawa Kan). This originally minor character was developed for the screen by Daiei Studios (now Kadokawa Pictures) and actor Shintaro Katsu, who created the screen version. A total of 26 films were made from 1962 to 1989. From 1972 to 1974, a television series of the same name was made. One hundred and twelve episodes were aired before the "Zatoichi" television series was cancelled.

Film number 17 of the original series was remade in America in 1990 (by TriStar Pictures) as Blind Fury, an action movie starring Rutger Hauer.

Today, we will watch, in full the 2003 remake starring Takeshi Kitano directed by Takashi Miike. Satoichi is a much loved character in Japanese modern day folklore and this samurai film is quite possibly one of the best of the modern samurai movies. It has a quite bizarre ending too! Enjoy!

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Roots of Japanese anime? 24 traditional Japanese monsters

One of my favorite blogs on Japan is Pink Tentacle. Pick Tentacle is a blog about Japanese Art, Culture, Science and Technology.


I highly recommend it.


Today, they have an unusual collection of 24 traditional Japanese monsters. Have you ever wondered where the Japanese get their ideas for those silly monsters in the Godzilla movies? I have. Well, the fact of the matter is that Japan has had some very strange (or silly) looking monsters for a long time.


Pick Tentacle has uncovered a collection of 24 of them and made high quality scans for your viewing pleasure! The description reads:     


The Bakemono Zukushi handscroll, painted in the Edo period (18th-19th century) by an unknown artist, depicts 24 traditional monsters that once used to spook the people of Japan.


This is an interesting collection as, usually, the only other places you can see these spooks is at a local festival... And speaking of festivals, it's festival season now in Japan so get your notebooks out and jot down these characters now... They all look the same until you know the names...

Odoroshi (おどろし) is a red-faced monster with big eyes, black teeth, and long hair.

Yume-no-seirei ("dream ghost" - 夢の精霊) appears as a thin old man in a white robe.

Yamamba (山姥) is a mountain hag.

I like this last one. There was a while there, about 5 or 6 years ago, when Shibuya girls wore outrageous makeup on their faces and broad white eyeshadow. That fashion was called, "Yamamba" like the mountain hag above.

If you want to see more scrolls, click here.