Shin Zatôichi monogatari: Kasama no chimatsuri (1973)

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1. 

   Siskoid

   Ichi goes back to his home village in the last installment of his original film series in Zatoichi's Conspiracy, and it's not the same village we saw in Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, which feels less and less canonical the more I think about it (the sword-cane was all wrong). White skies and barren trees are witness to a wistful reunion with the people he knew, even as they struggle against a conspiracy between yakuza and magistrates to fleece the local villages out of their resources (with the color white a recurring motif leading to a rice-showering climax. There the sense of an ending without the film really being one. Shintarō Katsu goes on to play the character in over a hundred episodes of a TV series after this, before returning for one last big screen hurrah in 1989 (it must be some kind of record). It is still amazing to me that 25 Zatoichi films of pretty uniform quality were released between 1962 and 1973, sometimes 4 a year, while Katsu was also starring in two other film franchises that did the same. Though many plots felt samey, the series at least goes out on something that feels different and taps into the character's trademark poignancy. 3 years 7 months ago

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