Daisaku: You're a monster!
Ichi: You're a beast.
Ichi: You're a beast.
Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo is a 1970 jidaigeki movie directed by Kihachi Okamoto. The 20th movie in the Zatoichi series, it stars Shintaro Katsu as the eponymous blind swordsman and Toshiro Mifune as the titular bodyguard.
Of note, this is the first movie in the Zatoichi franchise to have Toho involved as Toho owns the rights to the Yojimbo movies. Because of this, it had to work with its rival Daiei to produce this crossover. In particular, Toho handpicked Kihachi Okamoto as this movie's director, which is why Okamoto has the Toho label in parenthesis next to his name in the opening credits. Eventually, Toho would acquire the rights to this movie (and many other Zatoichi sequels) after Daiei's bankruptcy in 1971.
In this installment of Zatoichi's adventures, the blind swordsman returns to his home village and finds that it has been overrun by the local yakuza. After killing some thugs, Ichi runs into the yakuza boss's one and only Yojimbo. Both warriors are unsure what to make of the other, and things get more complicated as more and more questionable characters enter the mix.
This film provides examples of:
- Call-Forward: Since this movie is a prequel to the Akira Kurosawa duology, there are plenty of references to Daisaku's later adventures as "Sanjuro".
- Yojimbo:
- Daisaku serves as the bodyguard or yojimbo of the yakuza boss Masagoro, but he has no intent of loyally serving Masagoro as he continuously demands money from the yakuza boss every time Masagoro orders him to do something.
- When Daisaku and Ichi discuss their plans for finding Eboshiya's gold, Ichi comes up with the idea to play both sides by manipulating Eboshiya against his son Masagoro. Daisaku will later use the same strategy in Yojimbo.
- Like Unosuke, Kuzuryu is a Samurai Cowboy who shows up late to the party and creates trouble for Daisaku.
- Sanjuro:
- At first, Daisaku is hesitant to kill Ichi because he doesn't want Ichi's death to haunt him. This trait is developed further in Sanjuro where Daisaku acquires an aversion to killing.
- Like in the aforementioned movie, Daisaku lies down in the same lazy pose when talking to someone he doesn't respect.
- The final duel parallels Daisaku's future battle with Hanbei, only in the opposite direction. In Sanjuro, Hanbei challenges Daisaku to a fight after Daisaku helps defeat his political superior Kikui, a challenge that Daisaku reluctantly accepts. Likewise, Daisaku here decides to attack Ichi after Umeno gets hurt, with Ichi only fighting back out of self-defense. Ironically, while Daisaku defeats Hanbei by drawing his sword with an unorthodox Reverse Grip, Ichi has less success with the same technique as Daisaku quickly disarms Ichi after the first exchange.
- Yojimbo:
- Chekhov's Gun: Daisaku carries a daishō sword pairing consisting of a katana and a tantō. While the katana sees the most use, the tantō comes in handy for killing Kuzuryu when Daisaku locks blades with him.
- Cool Versus Awesome: The original trailer
plays up the cool factor of the blind swordsman going up against the nameless ronin. - Doomed by Canon: Downplayed. The ending has Daisaku and Umeno confessing their love for each other, but the following movie in the chronology Yojimbo establishes Daisaku as a wandering loner. This means that Daisaku separated from Umeno during the time skip with Umeno's status remaining unknown as Daisaku never talks about her during his adventures as Sanjuro.
- Elite Mooks: Unlike most of the mooks in the other Zatoichi movies, Kuzuryu's underlings aren't mere fodder and manage to wound Ichi multiple times. In the final fight against Daisaku, Ichi loses the sword fight against Daisaku partially because of the injuries accumulated in the bout against Kuzuryu's mooks.
- Evasive Fight-Thread Episode: Downplayed. When Daisaku fights Ichi, the fight is mostly one-sided in favor of Daisaku, who cuts the latter's Cane Sword into three pieces and slices Ichi's back after the first exchange. Ichi retaliates by stabbing Daisaku's leg with his broken sword, but Daisaku breaks off the rest of Ichi's blade, leaving Ichi weaponless. The fight ends immediately after because a bystander then informs Daisaku that Umeno is still alive, leading both men to wordlessly call a truce. That said, Ichi was injured before the climatic showdown against Daisaku, so things could have gone differently had he been healthy.
- Foil: Both of the titular characters are Master Swordsmen but differ due to their societal rank. Ichi is of the lowest level of the blind guild and had to work his way up to become a respected swordsman whereas Daisaku, like any other Edo-period samurai, was born a warrior aristocrat.
- Foreshadowing: Some early scenes hint that Daisaku, unlike most of Ichi's final opponents in the previous movies, will prove to be a challenging opponent for Ichi when both men fight for real.
- When a drunk Daisaku meets Ichi for the first time, he outspeeds Ichi and almost stabs him. It's initially played off as a joke since Ichi pretends that Daisaku mortally wounded him, but Ichi then nervously wipes off his face sweat, implying that it was a close shave.
- Later, Daisaku kills multiple gangsters while the wind forces his eyes shut, replicating Ichi's blind fighting style.
- Daisaku beats down Kuzuryu very easily, receiving no injuries at all, whereas Ichi has some difficulty putting down Kuzuryu's minions and takes some damage as a result.
- Iconic Attribute Adoption Moment: Daisaku is a samurai for most of the movie but decides to become a ronin at the very end, setting up his Sanjuro identity in the Kurosawa movies.
- No Name Given: Subverted. Initially, the no-name samurai is referred to as "yojimbo" or "sensei" rather than his real name. However, when Kuzuryu arrives, he refers to the samurai by his surname Sasa. Later, the nameless samurai discloses his full name to be Daisaku Sasa when he arrests Eboshiya.
- Origins Episode: For Sanjuro. It shows his final mission as a samurai and reveals his original name. In addition, Ichi is the one who teaches Sanjuro his now infamous tactic of playing both sides.
- Revision: The Opening Scroll of Yojimbo doesn't specify when Sanjuro became a ronin, but it suggests that Sanjuro's loss of status occurred fairly recently around 1860. While this crossover doesn't state the date either, it's implied to take place in the 1850s since the other characters treat Kuzuryu's percussion pistol as a powerful, exotic weapon.note Given that Sanjuro loses his samurai status in this movie, this would mean he was a ronin for quite some time before the events of Yojimbo.
- Samurai Cowboy: Kuzuryu is a historically accurate version as he is a samurai equipped with both a katana and a percussion pistol, the latter of which was the most advanced gun model available in 1850s Japan.
- Stealth Prequel: While not obvious at first, there are multiple plot elements that indicate that the crossover is a prequel to the Yojimbo duology rather than a sequel. Notably, Sanjuro is a samurai rather than a ronin in this movie and hasn't adapted the Sanjuro alias yet. Moreover, in this movie, Sanjuro wields the daishō sword pairing, the same weapons that he loses in Yojimbo. This is justified as the Zatoichi series takes place in an earlier Edo period in which samurai were more common whereas the Yojimbo duology is set during the 1860s Edo period when the samurai were becoming obsolete.
