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(aka 'Zatoichi jigoku tabi" or "Showdown for Zatoichi" or "Zatoichi and the Chess Expert" or "Zatoichi's Trip to Hell" or "Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman & the Chess Expert")
directed by Kenji Misumi
Japan 1965
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Zatoichi films are all pretty similar. There are gambling (dice) scenes, Zatoichi vs. large gang fighting scenes, massaging scenes (usually of beautiful women), Zatoichi eating and drinking scenes, bath scenes, travel sequences, often a scenes with a child (or children) - and they all wonderful. One other consistent element is that they all are shot in glorious widescreen and contain some exquisite cinematography. I always find at least a couple of scenes in each film of this series to be quite breathtaking - certainly worthy of pondering over. I find these films so appealing regardless that I know exactly what is to come.
In this chapter Zatoichi meets a rather confident and intelligent foe in the guise of a chess expert. This is, of course, after he has easily defeated all his lesser foes who seek vengeance on his gambling prowess (sound familiar?). We have a female love interest and Zatoichi spurning her because of his opinion of his own "lowlife" status. All in all I was more enthralled with the first 3/4's of this particular film, but felt it failed slightly at the end. Still I think the world of Zatoichi so I give this  out of
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Posters from the Series
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Theatrical Release: December 24th, 1965 - Japan
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DVD Review: Home Vision - Region 1 - NTSC
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| Distribution | Home Vision - Region 1- NTSC | |
| Runtime | 1:27:00 | |
| Video |
2.33:1
Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.14 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s |
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NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
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| Bitrate: |
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| Audio | Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Dolby) | |
| Subtitles | English, None | |
| Features |
Release Information:
Edition Details: • Trailers
for Zatoichi's Vengeance, Zatoichi and the Doomed Man and
Zatoichi and the Chess Expert |
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| Comments: |
Great
work by Home Vision - they maintain the ratio, keep the original audio,
have removable non-intrusive white subtitles, even a poster included...
my only complaint is the audio appeared out of sync at times, so much so
that I noticed it on a number of occasions. Still, the colors
are beautiful with accurate skin tones and solid contrast. I am totally
indebted to Home Vision for bringing these out on DVD with such
good quality. No one else would have and each release just appears to be
improving!
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out of
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| Distribution | Home Vision - Region 1- NTSC | |
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Gary Tooze |
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