Samurai Stomp

Brought to you by Zatoichi, a movie I watched over the weekend. (Thanks to the Kerner for this great gift!)

Zatoichi, released in 2003, takes place in 19th-century Japan. The title character, Zatoichi, is a blind wanderer who makes his living as a masseur and a gambler. But behind his humble façade, he is a master swordsman gifted with a lightning-fast draw, remarkably precise strokes, and nearly supernatural powers of perception. He gets involved in ridding a mountain village of a few gangs of old-school yakuza, a project that also includes a revenge plot (warning: geishas are not what they seem!) and a lovelorn ronin, or rogue samurai.

I loved this movie. It's beautifully filmed and interesting to watch (even if I did lose track of some of the bad-guy gangs for a while). The simple splashes of color really stand out against the more muted backgrounds, starting with the opening credits and carrying right on through, pointing out the bold strokes someone exceptional can paint on life as well as the importance of a calm backdrop on which to paint. The swordplay was excellent, too: quick and decisive like it ought to be, free from the 20-minute-long clashes you see in other martial arts films or swashbucklers.

I especially enjoyed the finale. In the final scenes, a montage of stick clacking and clog dancing appears almost out of nowhere — certainly not what you're expecting after 90+ minutes of slicing and dicing. If you've ever seen the English percussion revue STOMP, which revolves around the rhythms produced by a variety of props like push brooms and garbage can lids, you have some idea what I'm talking about. (If not, visit www.stomponline.com and check out their clips.) I've seen STOMP several times, and a couple of their routines match some of the Zatoichi numbers almost exactly, especially the one where they bang a tall staff on the floor and hit it with a smaller stick. It looks like somebody borrowed from somebody, but I couldn't tell you who, or even if, for sure.

The finale didn't seem out of place to me, as it does to friends of mine, for several reasons. One, there had been other places in the movie where the movements of the actors matched up with the musical score, i.e. four workers hoeing on the downbeat in a big empty field. Two, toward the end, someone mentions that a festival starts soon, so it's no surprise that there's singing and dancing at this community celebration. And three, I see the big dance number as symbolic of the rhythms of life, especially with the switching between the children and the adult geishas they became. So yeah, it was a bit much, but no more so than the gratuitous gore or the blind master's fantastic abilities. And all those bright kimonos in one place were gorgeous.

So if anyone ever asks you what 19th-century Japanese gangsters and 21st-century English street theater have in common, you'll have your answer ready: Zatoichi Two thumbs up.

Today around the world: May 16 is National Bike to Work Day in the U.S. Did you?