Zatoichi Meets The One-Armed Swordsman

It seems that Shintaro Katsu and his production team had a good strategy at this late stage of the Zatoichi series in keeping audiences coming back to the box office with fresh ideas for marketing. In the previous installments he brought in big stars like Toshiro Mifune for Zatoich Meets Yojimbo and Tatusya Nakadai for Zatoichi Goes To The Fire Festival. In this installment, Zatoichi Meets The One-Armed Swordsman (1971), it is a joint production with the Shaw Brothers from Hong Kong to tie in with the Kung Fu films that were gaining popularity at the time and could be released for two different markets.. Another long time Zatoichi director is at the helm-Kimiyoshi Yasuda. Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu) crosses path with an orphaned Chinese boy and his protector Wang Kang (Jimmy Wang Yu), a Chinese swordsman who has come to Japan to visit a former Japanese training partner at his temple in Japan. Therefore, many of the kung fu tropes of action films deployed in the film: such as using wires to show Wang Kang jumping up cliffs and walking on the shoulders of his opponents as well as using his hand to hand fighting abilities. Zatoichi displays a surprising number of guises-at one point he farts to expel some peeping toms and later cuts the ear off a yakuza boss-the first time we've seen him torture a foe-somewhat disturbing, but quickly forgotten in the flow of the film as the action is constantly taking place. It seems as thought he body count is increasing as the series progresses. This might be a reflection of the increasing popularity of exploitation cinema worldwide. It is something to be consider as the Zatoichi franchise winds down.