Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman (1971)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Anthony L

  
  Jimmy Wang Yu is cool. Truth be known, he should have defeated Zatoichi with one hand behind his.....oh dear. You get the picture though. This felt almost like a Babykart vs. Babykart film, with the two men trying to protect the boy, alas as they say in the final scene, 'We could… More
  Jimmy Wang Yu is cool. Truth be known, he should have defeated Zatoichi with one hand behind his.....oh dear. You get the picture though. This felt almost like a Babykart vs. Babykart film, with the two men trying to protect the boy, alas as they say in the final scene, 'We could have been friends, but we spoke a different language" - something like that anyway. Zatoichi is ace.

• Luke B

  
  Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman is better than Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo. It doesn't feel the needs to needlessly inflate Wang's role. It adds a new visionary style as Wang's martial arts and fighting skills are very different to those we have seen before. It makes… More
  Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman is better than Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo. It doesn't feel the needs to needlessly inflate Wang's role. It adds a new visionary style as Wang's martial arts and fighting skills are very different to those we have seen before. It makes his scenes more exciting and his battle with Zatoichi interesting and unpredictable. Plenty of limb lopping and some emotional investment. The best thing about this film is the confrontation where neither Zatoichi, nor Wang is the villain. It doesn't chicken out from giving us a decent ending either.

• xGary X

  
  On his travels, blind swordsman Zatoichi stumbles across a massacre and takes in a small boy who witnessed the event. When the killers come looking for him, Zatoichi and family friend Wang Kong or "the one-armed swordsman" pledge to defend the child at all costs. Although… More
  On his travels, blind swordsman Zatoichi stumbles across a massacre and takes in a small boy who witnessed the event. When the killers come looking for him, Zatoichi and family friend Wang Kong or "the one-armed swordsman" pledge to defend the child at all costs. Although this installment in the long running franchise has a rather gimmicky premise, its combination of frenetic action scenes and an atmospheric historical setting makes for a good, solid samurai movie. Shintaro Katsu shifts from affable booze hound to intimidating bad ass with the greatest of ease; the scene when he rescues a local girl from the assassins is fantastic. Despite its attempt to ape the master, it's no Kurosawa as technical limitations mean a couple of scenes are so dark it's difficult to tell what's going on and the moral message at the end felt forced. But as a whole it's a very enjoyable blood & katana flick that won't disappoint fans of the genre.

• Tsubaki S

  
  A dream-combo of a movie with Katsu Shin and Jimmy Wang Yu, both starring as the lead characters. The differences of cultures and languages make the interaction between both characters beliavable, and thus, making the innevitable showdown more juicy. Katsu Shin happens to have more… More
  A dream-combo of a movie with Katsu Shin and Jimmy Wang Yu, both starring as the lead characters. The differences of cultures and languages make the interaction between both characters beliavable, and thus, making the innevitable showdown more juicy. Katsu Shin happens to have more screen time, hard to avoid being this mainly a Japanese production, but still, there is plenty of stuff to see for fans of both characters.