Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman 06: Zatoichi And The Chest Of Gold (DVD)

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"Star Trek" fans obsess over ten theatrical films and more than 400 TV episodes. "James Bond" fans live vicariously through the debonair spy via 19-plus movies and Ian Fleming´s novels. All those tykes growing up with Harry Potter will have 7 wonderful books and 7 (hopefully as wonderful) silver screen experiences to enjoy.

Every culture and every generation offers its own mega-series of richly detailed, sharply defined fictional worlds. Beginning in the early-1960s, the Japanese created the phenomena known as Zatoichi. Zatoichi the blind swordsman (played by Shintaro Katsu) is the focus of a 26-film series and approximately 100 TV episodes. Zatoichi wanders from town to town as a masseuse. However, given his reputation as a skillful warrior, Zatoichi manages to get involved in a variety of situations that require him to bust out a can of whoopass. :-)

In "Zatoichi 6", our hero has the misfortune of sitting on a chest of gold while taking a breather during his foot-travels. Since he has a reputation for being a puckish trickster, everyone assumes that he has something to do with the disappearance of the 1,000 ryos that were in the chest. However, poor Zatoichi didn´t even know that he was sitting on a fortune! Still, being the honorable fellow that he is, Zatoichi promises to find the gold, both to clear his name and to help the local villagers to pay their taxes. To make things difficult, a whip-wielding swords-master constantly hounds Zatoichi because he thinks that our hero´s low-class status in Japanese society is an insult to swordsmen everywhere. (Shintaro Katsu´s real-life brother, Tomisaburo Wakayama, plays the baddie in "Zatoichi 6". Wakayama also played the baddie in "Zatoichi 2".)

The "Zatoichi" movies offer fairly straightforward stories with maybe a twist or two to reward longtime followers. Most of the delights in watching these films come from the colorful characters that populate Zatoichi´s eventful life. For instance, in the first film, our blind hero deals with yakuza thugs who are really not that different from modern-day punks with little to do but leer at women and behave like drunken louts. There´s an amusing scene where Zatoichi plays dice with a bunch of gamblers, and he manages to take advantage of them trying to take advantage of him! LOL.

By the sixth movie in the series, Zatoichi´s fans knew that they could count on reliables much in the same manner as James Bond fans can count on the appearance of vodka martinis in every Bond outing. For example, Zatoichi always seems to be getting into a fight after winning "too much" money in a gambling establishment. He always plays a bumbling blind fool until he has lulled his enemies into believing that he´s not much of a fighter. There´s always a final fight between Zatoichi and each movie´s main baddie that showcases how Zatoichi turns his weaknesses into his enemy´s weaknesses and his enemy´s strengths into his strengths.