Female Zatoichi Film Due Later This Year

[Mulboyne]

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Also spotted on Twitch is the teaser trailer for Fumihiko Sori's "Ichi" which takes the Zatoichi story but changes the gender of the protagonist. It opens in Japan this autumn.

[Charles]

She may be hot, but I still prefer the original series.

[akatsuka]

Whats the point of changing the character to be female instead of male?

[hundefar]

Whats the point of changing the character to be female instead of male?

hotness?

[Charles]

Whats the point of changing the character to be female instead of male?

What was the point of Beat Takeshi changing the character to have blond hair? Oh that film sucked, I couldn't even sit through it.

I love the original film series, I think the best ones are the first and last in the series. Zatoichi Monogatari (film #1) is in B&W and has the richest atmosphere. The last film, done in 1989, 16 years after the previous film, is a real hoot. It's done in a cheesy low-budget chanbara style of the era, but Shintaro Katsu directed it so it's his vision, and in this film he gets the girl.

But I think my favorite scene of all time is from a middle-of-the-series film, IIRC it's about how Ichi saves a poor artist who is enslaved into producing pornographic paintings on ceramics, and the artist is sentenced to death by the government. But anyway, in that film, Ichi is drinking in an izakaya, where an old crone sidles up to him and starts making nice. She gives him a hand-job, while Ichi flatters her with lies about how he can tell how young and beautiful she is despite his blindness. Then when she finishes, she asks him for money, and Ichi protests that it wasn't worth a single sen.

[Greji]

I love the original film series, I think the best ones are the first and last in the series. Zatoichi Monogatari (film #1) is in B&W and has the richest atmosphere.

I did too and was a fan of Katsu Shintaro for many years. But, his reaction when he got busted with "shabu" in his underwear in Hawaii and subsequent statements of "I don't know how it got there, I was framed, somebody put it there while I was sleeping, then, when that didn't work: I'm being singled out because I'm: a. a Japanese, b. famous, c. unique, etc., was quite a turn off. Hell, he got caught with the goods. Shoganai, no comment, or the compulsory J-apology, would have been sufficient. He lost a lot of luster for me there.

But, Zato Ichi still rates high with me and only he can ever be Ichi!

[Mulboyne]

[American Oyaji]

The Japanese masseuse that I go to see doesn't use her eyes at all during massage. Once she's actually touching you, her eyes go vacant and she is looking off into space while her hands and forearms do the "seeing".
I say forearms because she uses them because she is TINY. She is only 4'11".

But she is GOOD at what she does. Keeps me pain free.