Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, The

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A masterpiece of wry violence and stylized mayhem, The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi turns loose one of Japan's most brilliant film auteurs, Takeshi Kitano, on one of its most enduring pop legends.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

This roaring crowd-pleaser also boasts hilarious bits of business, insightful observations into the human condition, and geysers of kitschy computer-generated blood.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The summer's most rousing action picture.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A boisterous and improbably entertaining action comedy.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

If there's a larger theme in Zatoichi, it's that nobody is quite who he or she seems.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The kind of film I more and more find myself seeking out, a film that seems alive in the sense that it appears to have free will; if, in the middle of a revenge tragedy, it feels like adding a suite for hoes and percussion, it does.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

It's a top-notch action film, albeit on the bloody side, complete with decisive action, mysterious characters and a nobility and sense of purpose that allows its excesses to be forgiven.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Kitano the filmmaker makes sure that everything is beautiful, from the wonderful colors and passing tableaux to the intricate fighting choreography. This blind swordsman, you realize, has vision to spare.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Kitano uses exaggerated acting, choreo-graphed violence and, most radically, the rhythms of everyday life -- farmers pounding the earth, the syncopated plop of falling rain -- to turn this genre story into a crypto-Kabuki play and one blissfully idiosyncratic diversion.

Film Threat Chris Barsanti

As entertaining and surprising as the film is, however, nothing can prepare one for its rousing final fight scenes.

Variety David Rooney

Over-plotted and at times incoherent but never dull, this is a stylishly designed, highly entertaining bloodbath full of offbeat comedy and inspired musical moments.

LA Weekly Walter Chaw

Although Zatoichi may disappoint some Kitano purists, who might think it a vanity piece or submission to popular taste -- he's even begun moving his camera -- its pyrotechnics are still audacious and breathtaking.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Like many musicals, The Blind Swordsman works better in individual scenes than as a whole. Mr. Kitano is not the most disciplined storyteller, and the plot meanders along tangents and stumbles into flashbacks, losing momentum for long stretches in the middle.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Beneath its layers of epic detail, this Zatôichi is cinematic cotton candy.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Because Kitano also wrote and directed the movie, Zatoichi also features all kinds of beguiling, if admittedly bizarre, subplots and forays into nonsequitur territory.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

What really separates Zatoichi from a run-of-the-mill action pic is the sense of humor -- and even more than that, the sense of fun -- that Kitano brings to it.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Stylishly directed and smartly acted, especially by the filmmaker-star, who gives one of his best performances as the unerring swordsman.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Kitano is a riveting spectacle. So's the movie.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

It feels like one long non-sequitur -- like closing a Charles Bronson film with a disco medley -- but there's an emotional consistency to Kitano's boisterous celebration of movement.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

The tap-dance finale is a gem.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie, quite simply, goes to sleep whenever Zatoichi isn't fighting. When he is, it's a pulp dazzler.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

More reinvention than remake, this black-humored, blood-soaked adventure is a colorful if impersonal audience pleaser done up in a showy, fluid style with a tongue-in-cheek flair.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Hyper-violent yet emotionally powerful.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Mixing all the liberal blood-letting with equal amounts of inspired comedy, Kitano puts a fresh face on the classic material without messing with its heart.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Like Ang Lee's "Hulk," it's a fusion of arthouse and multiplex instincts, and though it seems unlikely to satisfy anyone, it's just as unlikely that anyone who sees it will forget it soon.

Newsweek David Ansen

A mix-and-match crowd-pleaser that shouldn't add up, but delightfully does.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A reasonably good Kurosawa pastiche. But overburdened with convoluted flashbacks and interpolated gags, and generally lacking a dynamic sense of cutting, the movie doesn't possess the master's sardonic brio.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Though the filmmaker has by now ridiculed the martial-arts drama virtually out of existence, the final dance number -- actually closer to festive stomping than tapping -- somehow manages to transcend irony, conveying instead only Kitano's childlike exhilaration, with a sense of ease regained.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

I never did sort out the gangsters fighting for control of a 19th-century town, nor did I figure out exactly what happened to the main henchman. But I was rarely bored.

USA Today Claudia Puig

This incarnation is funny, quirky and clever, with some mesmerizing action sequences.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A bravura tap-dancing finale as exhilarating as it is bizarre.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The best part of Zatoichi is its fine sense of rhythm, culminating in a galvanizing clog-dance finish.

Slate David Edelstein

What saves Zatoichi is that it ends -- for no clear reason -- with a foot-stomping ensemble dance number that is both delightful and unhinging: It sends you home with spasmodic giggles, convinced this Japanese imp has discovered a new path to your unconscious.