Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo

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Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo
Original release Japanese B2 film poster
Directed byKihachi Okamoto
Written byKihachi Okamoto
Tetsuro Yoshida
Produced byShintaro Katsu
StarringShintaro Katsu
Toshiro Mifune
Ayako Wakao
Music byAkira Ifukube
Release date
  • 15 January 1970 (1970-01-15)
Running time
79 min
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (座頭市と用心棒) is a 1970 Japanese drama film directed by Kihachi Okamoto. It is the twentieth of a series of films featuring the blind swordsman Zatoichi. The main character is based on a fictional character, a blind masseur and swordmaster. He was created by novelist Kan Shimozawa and set during the late Edo period (1830s and 1840s).

In this film, the actor Toshiro Mifune plays a similar character to Sanjuro, the ronin (masterless samurai) in Akira Kurosawa's famous film Yojimbo (1961). Although Mifune is clearly not playing the same man (his name here is Daisaku Sasa, and his personality and background are different in many key respects), the film's title and some of its content play on the idea of the two iconic jidaigeki characters confronting each other. (Incident at Blood Pass, made in the same year, also stars Mifune in a role similar to that of Yojimbo.)

Cast

External links