ZATOICHI'S CONSPIRACY
(Aka:
Zatoichi
25; The Blood Festival of Kasama)(Japanese Title: Shin Zatôichi monogatari: Kasama no chimatsuri)
(1973 - Japan)
With Shintaro Katsu, Yukiyo Toake, Eiji Okada, Takashi Shimura, Tatsuo Endo, Rei Yokoyama
Directed by Yasuda Kimiyoshi
Reviewed by JB
The last proper Ichi
film in the series
before it moved to television,
ZATOICHI'S CONSPIRACY is also one of the most poignant, as Ichi returns
to his home town, visits the grave of the woman who raised him, and
meets his "sister" Oyimo. He also discovers that his
childhood
friend Shinbei has become a successful but crooked merchant who is in
league with (wait for it) a corrupt tax official and (wait for it) the
local crime boss. The first half of the film hearkens back to
TALE
OF ZATOICHI, with its emphasis not on violence but on character
development and plot detail.
The film is greatly
aided not only by the
charming women of the cast - Yukiyo Toake as Oyimo and Rei Yokoyama as
Yuri the town tramp - but also by two superior character actors
who have played with Katsu before. Tatsuo Endo is back again,
amusing as always as a sniveling, cowardly crime boss who has to deal
with this pesky blind masseuse who is messing up all his
plans.
Takashi Shimura also returns for his second go-round in an Ichi film,
playing an almost identical part as he did in ZATOICHI AND THE
FUGITIVES, that of a kindly older man who befriends Ichi.
The ending is marred
somewhat by a few
clearly impossible feats by Ichi, but is still memorable for its
setting and
its violence. While Ichi slaughters the local gang inside of
a
storage
shed filled with bags of rice the violence, rice rains all over
everybody like a Kurosawa summer storm. Ichi is particularly
ruthless this time around, with moves that include slicing off an arm
and cutting a carotid artery.
There have been
better Ichi movies and
worse ones. The 25th and final Ichi film (until the surprise
comeback of 1989) merely serves to show how consistent the series was
overall. Far from coming off as the series' definitive final
statement, ZATOICHI'S CONSPIRACY feels like it could have been released
at any time from 1963 through 1973. 
½ - JB
http://thestuffyougottawatch.com
Copyright © 2010 John V. Brennan, John Larrabee