Gary Tooze
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Release Date: May 13th, 2003
'Zatôichi to Yôjinbô'or 'Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo'
directed by Kihachi Okamoto
Japan 1970
Shintaro Katsu is the one and only Zatoichi! A warm-hearted, blind masseur, occasional gangster and defender of justice. He is possessed of superlative swordsman skill and is capable of slaughtering 20 men in one lop-sided attack. His trouble is fleeing from his tortured and violent past... as well as he prodigious and well deserved reputation as a samurai. Toshiro Mifune recreates Yojimbo, the mercenary bodyguard also holder of legendary samurai-sword yielding skills. With a desire to rest, Zatoichi returns to his once peaceful village which is now overrun by gangsters who have hired Yojimbo to protect them with a stolen cache of hidden gold. To cleanse the small town and bring peace to the village, Zatoichi formulates his own plan, in which he temporarily teams up with Yojimbo... but will they ever do battle against each other? Typical Zatoichi ending with a small moral message and our hero wandering off into the sunset yet again. A drifter ready for another small town and villains to outwit or slaughter. Gary Tooze
This is a really good disc. Great care taken in the transfer to DVD with true colors and relatively sharp picture quality. Contrast is also very good. I really like the feature of the subtitles to have them "explaining" some of the cultural words on the top of the frame in white, and this is a choice. They have even gone to the trouble of color coding the subtitles to help determine who is speaking as so much seems to be going on at the same time in certain spots of the film. the sound is clean if unremarkable. I'm not too crazy about the yellow and green subs. The Extras are kind of bare, but a nice slip of paper is included in the disc case with info on Zatoichi and the care that was gone to bringing this to DVD, as well as a memorial notice for Shintarô Katsu who passed away in 97' Great stuff Animeigo !
out of
Regards,
