Kimiyoshi Yasuda was already a veteran director of the Zatoichi series when he was at the helm for Zatoichi And The Fugitives (1968), the 18th film in the series. This film stands out mainly due to the talent involved in this production: the director of cinematography again was the legendary Kazuo Miyagawa (had the same role in seminal films for Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Ozu, and Ichikawa among others), another legend was Takashi Shimura (Seven Samurai, Ikiru, and Godzilla for starters) playing a benevolent doctor, Junan, with a taste for sake, Yumiko Nogawa (star of Seijun Suzuki films Gate of Flesh and The Story of a Prostitute), as Oaki a reformed femme fatale, and the dueling villain was Kyosuke Machida (star of many samurai films in the 60s). That being said, the story and set pieces do not vary much from earlier incarnations. There are the amazing feats performed by the Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu): bisecting a falling snake in the forest, flipping a coin in to a rival sake cup while departing an izakaya, quartering a bottle of sake. Zatoichi again is called upon to protect the weak from a greedy yakuza boss, Matsugoro (Hosei Komatsu) as well as have a final showdown with a band of fugitives that were being hid by the yakuza boss. However, Zaotichi shows some vulnerability in that he is slightly injured by swords during a humiliation at the hands of the ruthless fugitives. Near the end of the film he is seriously injured by a bullet fired from a pistol-of course this gives him the opportunity to cut down a legion of henchmen while nursing his wound. But as I have pointed out before, Miyagawa's cinematography is always original and artistic-adding to the overall artistry of the film: gathering herbs in the forest, climbing through the mountains to the next village, the search for Zatoichi's body in the river in boats with torches burning in the night. The title song sis perhaps overused-three times by my count, but despite that this is one of the better films given the concentration of talent amassed for this production.
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