Zatoichi

Zatoichi (2003) is Takeshi Kitano's samurai action film, available to watch online on iFILM. In nineteenth-century Japan, a blind, blond-haired drifter earns coins as a masseur and a dice gambler, yet his walking cane hides a blade and his reflexes outpace any sighted man.

Zatoichi wanders into a mountain town squeezed in the fist of Ginzo's gang. The locals are robbed and cut down, all the worse since the ronin Hattori joined the thugs — a swordsman who kills for money to pay for his sick wife's medicine. Into the same town come two geisha, Okinu and Osei, who have spent years tracking the men who slaughtered their family. Kitano braids these threads toward a final reckoning where the blind man settles every debt.

Kitano directs, writes and stars all at once. The picture took the audience prize at the Venice Film Festival, and its signature flourish is unforgettable: blood spurting in digital geysers and farmers tilling a field in time with a tap-dancing closing number. Sharp, wry and oddly musical, it is samurai cinema for viewers who want bite without posturing. Stream Zatoichi (2003) online on iFILM.