“The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi,” DVD, May 17, 2005 (2003), Japanese with subtitles. This is a remake from a very popular series of films from the 1930s and again in the 1960s about a blind swordsman (Takeshi Kitano) who wanders around the country as a masseur. He stumbles into a village ruled by two warring gangs of murderers and thieves. He also encounters two siblings one woman and one a male transvestite, living as geisha prostitutes and thieves, who have vowed to avenge their family murdered by one of the gangs. The film is very gory with remarkable swordfights, not long drawn-out affairs, but rapid slaughters. The gang hires a traveling samurai who fights as an assassin and bodyguard to earn money to cure his ill wife. The film is rough with lots of blood and flying body parts as well as ninjas appearing out of nowhere, but it’s also comic and it becomes increasingly surreal when the farmers all work in time to a beat they create (almost like “Stomp,”) one of the gangsters produces a modern pistol, a friend of the swordsman tries transvestism himself, and by the end, we have an entire village, including every dead gangster and the child versions of the two siblings tap/clog dancing in a Busby Berkley visual bit to drum music. When does this take place in Japanese history?. Who knows. The story is apparently traditional but the film is pure cinema un-verite. My odd description doesn’t it justice. It’s very good and well worth watching.