Beautiful and blind young girl Ichi travels alone in the countryside visiting towns and villages making a living as a musician. However she’s isolated and feels abandoned in the world and thus she’s searching for her father. Now you’d imagine that somebody like that would be an easy target for thieves but you’d be wrong as Ichi isn’t as weak as you think. Trained at an early age by another blind man (who could be her father) she’s skilled with a sword and can take care of herself when she has to. When she crosses paths with the Banki-to gang a samurai comes to help her but she ends up taking them all out in order to help him. An orphan child guides Ichi and the wimp samurai to a village where Banki is making a nuisance of himself with his thugs. The village isn’t big enough for both of them so somebody has to die.
A new take on the Zatoichi story but this time having a woman playing the blind swords person instead of a man. I’ll be honest and say this was slightly better than the Beat Takeshi version I saw years ago. I liked Ayase Haruka in the lead, she did pretty well in the sword fighting scenes but her singing left a lot to be desired. If you’re expecting an all out action movie then you’ll be disappointed. Another problem is the use of CG blood. It spoils the movie, I’m not a fan of it at all. The script isn’t the best but the actors involved did what they could with it apart from the lead villian who really hams it up badly. The movie length could have been shortened too. Despite the flaws it’s still a pretty decent flick with much to enjoy.
Sadako’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Sadako's Movie Shack 