The Criterion Collection

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  Adventures of Zatoichi

  Kimiyoshi Yasuda
  1964 • 86 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
  Editions: Collector’s Sets, iTunes

  The blind swordsman wanders into a town to celebrate the New Year. There, he befriends a young woman whose father has gone missing; as he tries to help her find him, he becomes entangled in a web of corruption and a series of tragic twists of fate.

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  Zatoichi and the Fugitives

  Kimiyoshi Yasuda
  1968 • 82 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
  Editions: Collector’s Sets, iTunes

  The wandering swordsman finds himself in a small village that serves as hideout for a band of fugitives who control the town officials and enforce brutal slave labor in the local silk mill.

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  Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman

  Kimiyoshi Yasuda
  1971 • 94 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
  Editions: Collector’s Sets, iTunes

  It’s East meets East when one of Japan’s action idols crosses paths with an iconic kung-fu hero from Hong Kong.

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  Zatoichi on the Road

  Kimiyoshi Yasuda
  1963 • 87 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
  Editions: Collector’s Sets, iTunes

  The itinerant Zatoichi comes across a dying man, who begs the masseur to escort a young woman back to her family in Edo. The honorable swordsman agrees, but in so doing, he catapults himself between two warring yakuza clans, each with its own interest in kidnapping the girl.

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  Zatoichi's Cane Sword

  Kimiyoshi Yasuda
  1967 • 93 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
  Editions: Collector’s Sets, iTunes

  Wearying of his wandering lifestyle, Zatoichi yearns to settle down; unfortunately, when he does so it’s in a town overrun by yakuza. He has an eye-opening encounter with the town’s blacksmith, who reveals himself to be the apprentice of the man who forged Zatoichi’s legendary cane sword.

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  Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman

  Japan
  Spine: #679  Edition: Blu-Ray

  The colossally popular Zatoichi films make up the longest-running action series in Japanese history and created one of the screen’s great heroes: an itinerant blind masseur who also happens to be a lightning-fast swordsman.

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  Zatoichi’s Conspiracy

  Kimiyoshi Yasuda
  1973 • 88 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
  Editions: Collector’s Sets, iTunes

  Capping off Zatoichi’s feature film era before he made the transition to television in 1974, this chapter is suffused with melancholy, closing the series on a note of seriousness and emotional heft that it has well earned.

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