Zatoichi Meets The One-Armed Swordsman (1971)

(Originally released as: Shin Zatoichi: Yabure! Tojin-ken)

Starring: Shintaro Katsu, Wang Yu, Watako Hamaki, Michie Terada, Koji Nambara, Koji Minawara

First, the Lowdown: Two martial arts legends and hilarity ensues.

“Ladies and gentlemen! I know present to you the match of the century! In the red corner, from the warring Manchu states himself, the Monodextrous Marauder – Wang Kang, the One-Armed Swordsman!”

(cheers and applause)

“And in the blue corner, from our very own feudal kingdoms, the Handicapable Hatchetman – Zatoichi, the Blind Warrior!”

(cheers and applause)

“Now let's get ready to RUUUMMMMBLE!!!”

In an empty field a blind man with a cane waits. Finally growing impatient, he calls out to the group of thugs that have been following him since he left a nearby village. The thugs stay back, however, waiting for one of their number to sneak up silently on their quarry. Zatoichi, our blind man, isn't any normal handicapped drifter, however, and picks up a nearby rock and beans the sneaking man on the noggin. Now pissed, the thugs call out to Zatoichi to lure him into a trap, a tied snare. The blind man finds it, but pretends to stumble. Three men charge and quicker than you can say “Ginsu”, Zatoichi disembowels them.

In the following village a family of Chinese circus performers busks for their living. The father juggles spears and hurls them at a target his wife stands in front of. After their performance, they are greeted by Wang Kang, a swordsman also from China who is missing his arm. Wang Kang is looking for the temple of Fukuryu-ji, so that he may study with an old friend of his and avoid the many enemies he's made in his homeland. The performers offer to show him the way there, they have been away from China so long that they crave news from home. The next morning, the group encounters a procession escorting a tribute to one of the feudal lords. The villagers scurry to get out of their way and avoid their sight. Wang Kang, new to Japan, does not understand, but follows suit anyway. The performer’s son, Shaolong, however chases after his kite that blew in the path of the oncoming samurai. Perturbed at the interruption of their escort, they draw their swords to strike the boy down, but Shaolong's mother takes the blow to protect her son. The boy's father steps forward and prevents the man from finishing the job, only to be attacked by a second samurai. Wang Kang will have none of that, though. He makes short work over the men who attacked Shaolong's parents, and quickly dispatches about five others before running off. The samurai leader sends half of his men after Wang Kang in pursuit, but tells the remaining ones to kill all of the witnesses! That way the samurai can claim that some random one-armed Chinese guy went apeshit and started killing people!

Meanwhile, Zatoichi is walking along the same path when he hears Shaolong crying. He has enough time to hear Shaolong's father die. Taking the boy along, the come to the nearby village where Zatoichi finds out that some random one-armed Chinese guy went apeshit and started killing people. The offending man has been chased into a quarry though, and there is a 5 ryo (Japanese gold coins) reward. Unbeknownst to our blind man, two of the thugs that accosted him earlier are still alive and plotting a way to screw him over.

At the quarry, our one-armed swordsman is proving to be a harder catch that previously thought. The pursuing men try to rush him out of a hut that Wang Kang has hidden in, only to find out that he's pretty good in close quarters. So they try smoking him out, only to find out that he's too quick for them to catch either and they lose him in the forest. Wang Kang's flight is interrupted by Zatoichi who is trying to find out where Shaolong can go. Wang Kang is happy to the boy and takes him along, hoping to find Fukuryu-ji. However, he leaves Zatoichi, not trusting. Zatoichi deduces that Wang Kang is the one-armed Chinese guy that the samurai have been searching for, so he follows them to make sure that Shaolong is safe.

He catches up with them at an abandoned shed, and offers them food. However, neither Zatoichi or Wang Kang speak the same language, so they cannot understand each other. After proving that the food is not poisoned, Zatoichi wins them over. Shaolong does know Japanese, though and tells Zatoichi where Wang Kang is headed. Wang Kang asks him to guide them there so they set out in the night.

Needing rest, they come to a house in the middle of the woods. As coincidence would have it, it belongs to Oyo-ne and her father, who saw the samurai attack earlier, but survived by hiding. Both of them recognize the Chinese man and offer the three of them a place to spend the night. Oyo-ne's father tells them that the henchmen of boss Toubei, the head of the local Yakuza, have been combing the countryside. Wang Kang's bounty is now TEN ryo and they're hoppin' mad. Zatoichi then learns of Wang Kang's innocence of the whole affair, which only makes him more determined to help them out.

The next morning, Zatoichi sets out to get supplies. Wang Kang is worried about his departure, though, but still can't understand a word they say. Unknown to Zatoichi, boss Toubei wasn't the only one searching the forest. The two surviving thugs from earlier, their grudges freshly burning, find out that Zatoichi has been helping Wang Kang and in turn report their whereabouts to boss Toubei! While in town, Zatoichi finds out that their cover has been blown and hurries back. However, Toubei is too late. Oyo-ne's parents refuse to talk and die for it. Zatoichi arrives at the house too late, however, and finds the husband and wife dead. Toubei has kidnapped Oyo-ne in the hopes that she'll tell him where Wang Kang is headed, but their interrogation has been interrupted by Zatoichi, who cuts off Toubei's ear and releases her.

Oyo-ne however, doesn't trust Zatoichi, since Toubei has told her that the blind man turned in their folks for the bounty! When she returns to her house, she finds Wang Kang and Shaolong, who have buried her parents out of respect. Wang Kang, however, remembers that the only person who knew about their location was Zatoichi, and he has mysteriously disappeared! Now convinced that Zatoichi sold him out, Wang Kang is determined to avenge the lives of those who helped them.

A one-armed man going up against a blind man sounds like something you'd normally find on YouTube, but I assure you that this is no joke. For the uninitiated, what we have here is the meeting of two legends of Chinese and Japanese martial arts cinema together in the same movie.

First there is Zatoichi, a blind masseur who keeps a sword in his cane. There are a ton of movies circling around him and they usually follow Zatoichi as he wanders from town to town, getting in the middle of stuff and carving people's butts off and serving it back to them, when they think they can take him out because he's blind. Most of the movies have the actor rolling his eyes to appear blind and performing stunts that really are only possible by the sighted (or Daredevil, Man Without Fear). But that's not the point of these movies – the point is to see a blind man slice up some jackass's sweetbreads and dodge the arterial spray that happens.

Second, there is Wang Kang, the One-Armed Swordsman. I can only think of two movies offhand that feature him, The One-Armed Swordsman and Legend of the Flying Guillotine. Both movies focus on Wang Kang and an ever-increasing stack of bizarre enemies and usually climax in a sequence of martial arts sequences so fantastically physics-defying that we barely notice that the actor playing Wang Kang has his “missing” arm stuffed in his shirt. But we're not supposed to care about that, we watch these movies to see Wang Kang crack open a barrel of “Uncle Chang's Most Potent Infusion of Ass Whoopery” on a gang of adversaries that could only be described as dada-esque.

Obviously, if you're a fan of freaktastic fighting, finding out about this movie should be the martial arts fanboy equivalent of Rush Limbaugh being locked in an Oxycodone factory.

Unfortunately, if you're expecting dazzlingly elaborate action set pieces, I'm sorry to say that while the One-Armed Swordsman may have been a Shaw Bros. presentation, this movie is made by Zatoichi's home company, Toho. Thusly the fights are along the line of the “slash and spray” variety that is common in samurai film.

But for such a pulpy story background, the script is very tightly written and captures the personalities of both legends without seeming too contrived. Especially interesting was the decision to make Wang Kang still use his native Chinese as his spoken language. It's because of this language barrier that we reach the crux of this film, and some of the ways that Japanese and Chinese is cross-understood are very amusing. (One scene has Wang Kang saying “Xiexie” or thank you, when Zatoichi offers him water. Zatoichi, however hears it as “Shasha” or the sound of running water.)

Line of the movie: “The dumb and the blind aren't a good combination.”

Five stars. Chop, grate, blend.