zatoichi: the festival of fire

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164982/

i think this is the third or fourth zatoichi movie i have seen, and i believe i can say at this point that i am pretty much done with the series. the idea of the blind swordsman is kind of a neat one, but it is not enough to sustain interest for more than two or three full-length movies. in festival of fire, they did seem to be trying to give zatoichi some additional dimensions, but ultimately, it always comes down to the mysterious anma swording down heaps of bad guys before emitting a moral lesson. and he always wins at cho-han. i am less clear on the moral lesson there, unless the moral lesson is that it is ok to cheat so long as you do not get caught or are in a position to sword everybody down in the event that you do get caught.

in conclusion, i can recommend watching one or two zatoichi movies, but no more than that, unless you have resilience to tedium. you could also check out the rutger hauer movie "blind fury" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096945/) which is more or less a usian zatoichi.