 With a script by lefty filmmaker Kaneto Shindo, Zatoichi's Pilgrimage (Zatoichi Umi-o wataru, Daiei, 1966) is a particularly good piece of writing, with a clear good plot riddled with simple but excellent one-liners: "I'm impressed. Great men are in the world, aren't there?" "I'll leave you one arm. Practice hard & try again." "Don't brag about being a pickpocket if you can't do it better."
It's one of the best episodes in the blind swordsman series, with some of the finest support players, including Kunie Tanaka as the loquacious man.
The film has an extremely serious tone. Even the oddest situations are gloomy. After Ichi slays a man named Eigoro (Hisashi Igawa) who attacked him, the dead man's horse finds its owner's corpse, & is upset. The horse begins to follow Ichi, as if for revenge. Such a thing as that can really haunt Ichi, who is in the midst of an eighty-eight shrine pilgrimage to see if the gods can help him never again have to kill another man.
At a crossroad, the horse insinuates itself in such a manner as to demand Ichi go the way the horse wants them both to go. Guilt ridden, Ichi answers its whinnying, following it to a certain place, to meet Eigoro's sister Okichi (Michiyo Ookusu aka Machiyo Yasuda), the embodiment of innocence.
 Zatoichi does not dodge her just effort to get revenge, & she ends up having to nurse him. Girls always fall for Ichi, & Okichi for all her need for revenge is no exception.
Ich, as happens in more episodes than not, is drawn into the troubles of the village. A filthy, bullying horse-trading gang has been taking over farm land, & Ichi will eventually set out to handle them alone.
The villagers are a mean-spirited lot who aren't at all apt to help Ichi when the chips are down, even though he acts selflessly in their behalf. He has undertaken to train them in some basics of defense, but they want him to risk his life alone, in accordance with the plan of the two-faced headman Gonbei (Masao Mishima).
 Even as the excellent one-against-all swordfight choreography unfolds, there's still some small question as to whether the townsmen will find sufficient decency & bravery to leave their houses & help, or whether they will let Ichi face such danger in their behalf without the least assistance.
One man does prove brave enough to come out; but he dies at once from an arrow, & no one else so much as peaks out from the shelters until only one bad guy is left standing.
Even when Ichi stands wounded from the bad guy's miniature bow, with an arrow through his arm, nobody seems to care if he lives or dies, just so long as his actions benefit the farmers.
 A message arises from the film, a simple one, that people are bad. Whether bullying thieves out to do harm, frightened peasants who care about no one but themselves, or a champion like Ichi who inevitably kills even people who have families that loved them -- everyone does bad things.
A couple of footnotes on the fourteenth Zatoichi episode: The rights to this film were purchased for Quentin Tarantino, so that for several years it has been missing from the otherwise complete subtitled Zatoichi set as sold in the USA.
It is not likely Tarantino will ever remake this film, & one can hope the rights will eventually revert so that the original film can be released in the USA.
In the meantime, it has been available in the UK, though you'll need a zone-free dvd player to view the Pal format. It's also available as a zone-free disc through the American "grey" market.
Be aware that there is a UK jewel box set which has a discription of Zatoichi at Large (Zatoichi goyo tabi, 1972) represented as Zatoichi's Pilgrimage. This error has been copied verbatim many places on the worldwide web.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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