This was the fifth Zatôichi film in just two years. It's been a while since I saw the last one in the series, but they're great fun. Simpler than the previous films, and also far more conventional as an action-adventure, "Zatôichi kenka-tabi" ('Zatôichi on the Road', 1963) stays true to its name, although it could've been called 'The Road To Edo' as well: a road movie of chasing and hiding, of fighting and fleeing to fight again; hide and seek, and pretense. The film greatly picks up in between the fights during the scene at the inn, which is well-made. And it is this sense of, well, it's not predictability because that sounds negative... let's say 'familiarity', that makes it so easy for the viewer to jump right into it – we know where it comes from and where it goes.
It's become a running joke by now to have Zatôichi evade fighting, only to be eluded to a situation where he has to fight. He think he's only on a trip to Edo, while he's taken there to help out at a clan fight. The film is a crescendo of provocation until Zatôichi finally unsheathes his sword. This, of course, makes the films work in the long run: we need a sympathetic character, and having a character who would run around killing people for pleasure doesn't really cut it here. Yet there is a genuinely tragic undersong here: he doesn't search for trouble yet the trouble finds him, and still he is looking for trouble, as he says in the film, by having learnt to fight with the sword.
My favourite moment is the one with the white sunshades on the slope, and Zatôichi running with the children in imitation of the ending of "Det sjunde inseglet" (1957), the other one is the Kurosawan climax.
I do wonder when we're going to have a decent villain, though.
