Let the bloodletting begin

Takeshi Kitano revives to exuberant effect the character Zatoichi, the blind master swordsman of Japanese legend, turning his tale into a gory, yet hilarious samurai genre flick. Replete with references and respectful nods to its predecessors, Zatoichi bears Kitano's imprimatur of Stooges-esque humor and wonderful moments of plain randomness that mark a welcome return to fun film-making after 2002's lugubrious Dolls.

As is the case with all martial heroes, Zatoichi, played by Kitano, is a drifter and a loner, a man with unmatched skills with the blade, who time and again finds himself reluctantly committed to delivering justice to fools. Far from being a handicap, Zatoichi's blindness is actually an advantage. His other senses have reached near-spiritual acuteness, canceling the need for eyesight, while lesser fighters tend to assume an easy match-up. This makes most of the fight scenes go like this: there's a zing, a flash and then usually a fountain of blood as Zatoichi's opponent goes down in a split second with an awful gagging sound.

In Kitano's version of the Zatoichi story, the hero wanders into a small town beset by the Ginzo gang, which has hired master bodyguard Hittori to eliminate rival gangs and help run protection rackets that are making life miserable for the townsfolk. As a hired henchman, Hittori struggles with the morality of his line of work, which he has undertaken to help pay for his ailing wife's treatment. But there is also a flashback to Hittori's early training, when he was maliciously beaten by his master, suggesting that his choice to become a paid killer has also to do with a sinister desire for revenge. Either way, his path was destined to cross with the righteous Zatoichi, who tries to scrape a living as a humble blind masseur, despite his highly

marketable sword skills.

At first Zatoichi settles quietly in the home of Aunt Oume, helping out on the farm, administering massages and in the evenings indulging his one weakness for gambling with Oume's jester nephew Shinkichi. Their good luck at the gambling table -- it's not actually luck, Zatoichi can hear how the dice fall -- leads the two into an encounter with a pair of prostitutes, who Zatoichi quickly unmasks as killers out to avenge the deaths of their parents 10 years before at the hands of the Ginzo gang. Moved by the prostitutes' story, the gears are set in motion for justice to arrive swiftly at the doorstep of the Ginzo crew and for a seaside match-up between Zatoichi and Hittori reminiscent of the 1956 classic Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island.

In Zatoichi, Kitano masters the careful balance of preserving the mystery of the lead character, without leaving him flat. Zatoichi speaks little, but his humor and affable manner make him the most human among the many stock evil and good characters. Meanwhile, the secondary characters of Hittori and the prostitutes are dwelt upon at some length to help explain Zatoichi's motivation for getting involved in the town's feuds. Some surprising twists at the end introduce some welcome complexity through a batch of overlooked characters, as well.

Zatoichi's release falls coincidentally between the Taiwan releases of Kill Bill: Vol. I and Kill Bill: Vol. II, begging a comparison between Quentin Tarantino's and Kitano's liberal use of B-movie cheese and over-the-top gore. While Tarantino is quite consciously preoccupied with creating a chic and encyclopedic peon to martial arts movies, Kitano's result is less self-consciously referential and ultimately more humorous and fun. And Zatoichi is nothing if not fun to watch from its ominous beginning to its end featuring an extended tap-dance scene that, frankly, only Kitano could get away with and that must be seen to be believed.