The hundred episodes of the TV series followed 1970s TV dynamics: Zatoichi was (mostly) unchanging from one episode to the next, and the 45-minute episodes (allowing for 15 minutes of advertisement ...

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 ...

But there’s still enough “Beat” in Kitano for him to retain his impish streak. In “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi,” more so than any other Kitano film save for the little-known “Getting Any?,” a gag is ...