Zatoiichi is not a comedy, it’s a sometimes quite bloody action piece and a samurai drama, but Beat Takeshi brings a charmingly light-hearted touch to what might otherwise have been an overly serious or conventionally dull affair.
The man has a lot of credits to his name but I can’t help but still see him as a comedian before anything else – and that’s not a critique in this case but a compliment. It also happens to be my favourite Kitano “Beat” Takeshi film by a long shot, and since he directed, wrote, co-edited, and starred in it, this is absolutely a Beat Takeshi film, albeit perhaps more ‘normal’ than his usual fare.
#LIVE ADAPTATION OF ANIME BASILISK TV#
The character himself has been around for a long time – he’s based on the classic figure that started tearing up the screen back in the 1960s and has seen a ton of remakes in TV as well as film ever since – but this particular version of him is hands down my favourite. Going in chronological order, let’s start with Zatoiichi, released in the U.S as The Blind Swordsman: Zatoiichi. I’d like to take the opportunity to introduce a few of them here, particularly for new viewers interested in checking out some films that are visually strong, showcase decent acting, and aren’t based on preexisting anime or manga. While all this may sound like I’m painting an overly bleak picture of mainstream Japanese live-action films (arthouse cinema being a totally different topic that I might deal with in a separate post sometime), there are a number of exceptions to the rule.
In terms of available budgets and overall quality, the Japanese film industry simply cannot be compared to its American counterpart.
#LIVE ADAPTATION OF ANIME BASILISK PROFESSIONAL#
It’s an industry riddled with earnest but terrible acting (because flavour-of-the-week models, TV personalities, musicians and idol group members are often hired in place of professional actors) and littered with a huge amount of derivative content (since so many films are based on flavour-of-the-week anime and manga franchises aimed squarely at already-established fanbases). While the number of domestic products being made has steadily increased over the past couple of decades, comparatively few of them have made enough money to be deemed mainstream hits while many struggle to even recoup production costs. It’s pretty easy to critique the Japanese live-action film industry. Yeah, that’s my face whenever I see most Japanese live-actions films too.