Zatoichi & the Fugitives (Zatoichi Hatashi-jo, 1963) finds Ichi-san taking refuge from the rain in a crumbling shack.

Others are already within, including beautiful young woman. She remains perfectly still hoping to go unnoticed by the blind masseur as she tries quietly to snatch his purse.

Two men jokingly put dirt in Ichi's rice, so he kills them. Murder over a practical joke is not his usual character. So too the soundtrack is weaker than the usual high standard, being jazzier or spaghetti westernish.

A little boy sees his dad beaten unconscious by gangsters. Ichi helps the injured man get to Dr. Junon (Takeshi Shimura, one of the greatest actors in the entire history of Japanese cinema), where Ichi first meets Shizu (Kayo Mikomoto), the sweet young woman in white.

Father & daughter take such a liking to Ichi they will want him to stay, & he begins to dream of having a family. He can't just hang out, though, as he needs to raise funds.

At Yoshida Inn people are partying & Ichi's hired as masseur. Since he's blind, they attempt to trip him.

He avoids their trap, traipsing over & between their legs, & they're impressed. Ichi does his sake-bottle cutting trick as seen in a couple episodes. The bottle lands seemingly unbroken, then falls in four neat pieces from his too-swift-to-see double-stroke. (In a scene late in the story Ichi will also do his "clip the candle" trick which leaves the candle's wick still burning on on the tip of his sword.)

While giving massage, Ichi purposely hurts a guy's muscle, then audaciously demands payment. Swords are drawn on him, with the threat to take off an ear or his nose. Just before they find out how much trouble they're getting themselves into, the ronin Genpachiro Ogano (Kyosuke Machida) steps in. They don't believe him when he says, "If I'd stepped in a moment later, your heads would have rolled."

Three wanderers have a grudge against Ichi. They are part of a larger band of fugitives led by a girl named Aki (Yumiko Nogawa), the very girl Ichi first encountered in the rain shelter, some of whose men Ichi killed, & others he came close to killing in the gambling hall.

They all stop again along their journey, staying at the headquarters of Boss Matsugoro (Hosei Komatsu), who controls the silkworm & weaving trade.

Matsugoro soon proves to be the main bad guy, but he's sufficiently well connected that he also has the position of regional law enforcement, which means there's no check on his misuse of power, hence the story "builds in" the validity of Ichi's one answer to all evils.

Matsugoro works his girls like they are slaves. Ichi saves a sickly girl who is being worked nearly to death. Boss Matsugoro now hates Ichi for making him get rid of the sick girl's bond paper.

Ichi takes a knife in the shoulder from Kumeji (Akifume Inoue), one of the fugitives, but it turns out actually to have stuck into the wooden handle of his cane-sword. Ichi does his fabulous iai draw & cuts open their kimonos, including that of their young woman-boss Aki.

The gang of fugitives kills the village headman & his family in service to Boss Matsugoro, as repayment for their "debt of lodging," a typical situation in yakuza fiction.

Sometimes comparatively innocent characters are caught up in the "debt of lodging" scenario, but there's no question but that this group of fugitives are just snarky bad-bad gangsters, who kill some extra people just for the sport of it, & even menace a little baby.

The girl among these killers seems to be their leader, but is not really capable of controlling their actions. She is menaced by Ichi, who hopes to convince her to amend her ways.

Her men, however, are all killers, unworthy of Ichi's consideration, so we may surmise they're eventually just "extras" to be summarily killed.

And this is just so apt to include a ronin among them, Genpachiro Ogano, who Ichi has never realized is the estranged son of the Doc Junon, whose sister Shizu has been unable to bring them back together for three years.

Anyone familiar with the nature of the Zatoichi series will soon suspect the ronin & Ichi will inevitably have their duel, & Ichi will have to be sad to kill the son of the good doctor & brother of a gentle sister.

In the meantime, when Ichi & the ronin meet, the rough young man observes casually, "If a man gets close to you, he's dead."

Ichi is nearly killed with a pistol shot. He falls into the river & vanishes, or would certainly have been killed while wounded. He finds a place to hide & dig out the bullet in his flesh, using his own sword. When he passes out, he's carried to Doc Junan's to be stitched up.

The next morning Boss Matsugoro's yakuza toughs take Doc Junan & his daughter hostage, demanding Ichi come to be finished off. Though not at all recovered, Ichi has to stagger to his feet, heading off to save innocent friends from torture & rape.

At this point Katsu is heard on the soundtrack singing his hit enka folksong "On the Lonesome Road."

This is the "hero march" toward certain doom, though as a series character Ichi is always only doomed emotionally.

From his previous injuries & blood-loss, he staggers pathetically onward, going first to Matsugoro's headquarters to save Junan, then to Matsugoro's private residence to save Shizo.

The story's "bad" girl Aki has decided in all this that she must turn over a new leaf & help get Shizu to safety, while Ichi is busy killing a massive number of bad guys & miscellaneous extras who try to stop him. The final series of battles have all the beauty of a ballet, as the wounded but invinciple Iche cleanses the village of evil. Ah! If only it were true, that one hero can fix all wrongs by killing everyone in his path.

Matsugoro is screaming "Kiri! Kiri!" kill-him-kill-him, but by now Ichi is revealing all the cruelty of his awakened demon.

The demonic Ichi says, "I came back from Hell to get you. They wouldn't let me past the River of Three Crossings without you. Emma-sama (the king of hell) is waiting for you."

When the cleansing is done, there is still the matter of the wicked fugitives on the road. And this one-more-battle is particularly gory, the last to fall being the strong ronin, killed in the presence of Doc Junan & Shizu. It is only then Ichi realizes they were family, & so mournfully he abandons his new home to return to the misty road, blood dripping from his body.

After nineteen feature films, this story is entirely familiar. But great even so. And incredibly, a little bloodier than the bloody average. And I especially like the handful of episodes that admit there is something very dark & demonic in Ichi's nature, & not exclusively a victim of his own circumstances.

Viewers working their way through the entire set should stagger their viewing pleasure, since watching these films one after another can become redundant & begin to feeling annoying when there is too little variation one film to the next. But give 'em a couple months between episodes & they always somehow seem fresh, the familiarity ritualistic rather than repetitious.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl