Zatoichi



A Takeshi Kitano Film (2003), Cedar Lee Theater in Cleveland Heights

Review by Diane S. Frank

I know, I know all human beings are the same. But having been to China via Japan Airlines and watching the entertainment package, stopping in Tokyo overnight and seeing what's in the overnight hotel convenience store offered, I'm convinced that Japanese Culture is truly different. At this point everyone must know of Anime, the highly stylized comic form used for Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon and other favorites with the kids. There's also Manga, illustrated books, often with highly explicit sexual themes. What I've read suggests that respectable Japanese businessmen will read this sort of thing in public on the train or subway. Imagine people reading Playboy or Penthouse in public in the US! Prowling the newsstand at the hotel I found a couple of examples of manga. Browsing through one I found an story of sexual adventure featuring a boy lusting after a popular entertainer who insisted he put on her bra and dance around. I couldn't figure out much more than that, but apparently he had a good time until her manager showed up.

All this is prelude to seeing Kitano's remake of the Japanese Samurai legend of the blind swordsman Zatoichi. This particular incarnation featured a strong transgender sub-plot. Most reviewers regard that story as crossdressing, but the film is far closer to the attitude of the Chinese art film "Farewell My Concubine", than say "Some Like it Hot". The basic concept of the legend is that a virtuoso but elderly and blind Samuri wanders through the countryside avenging wrongs committed by criminal gangs against the common people. Prior to the action of this story, a gang wipes out all but the son and daughter of a prosperous rice merchant. You meet these children grown up, both posing as Geishas in order to survive and seek revenge for the murder of their parents. But this is no mere crossdressing. As told in a flashback, you see the children escape by luck, the girl waking the boy up to go see their pet rat that was kept under the house. The boy's hair is styled much like his sisters even then and I think that there is an implication that the boy is far closer to his sister than usual for a boy.

Can you guess who is brother and who is sister?

Running for their lives, they are taken into a household only to discover that the owner of the house is a pederast who finds the boy quite attractive. As seen in the flashback, the boy isn't altogether reluctant to accept the attentions of the man. The man has painted the boy's face, and dressed him in a kimono. The sister rescues him, but as they sit at a rural shrine hungry and with nowhere to go, the boy, still in kimono and painted face approaches a man wandering by and prostitutes himself so they can survive. The children then train themselves to become a pair of geishas and wander the area robbing unsuspecting customers and seeking their parent's murderers. All works out in the end, as the blind swordsman rids the town of the criminal gang and avenges the siblings.

In an anti-climactic scene, one of the side-kicks says to the boy that now he can go back to being a man. The boy declines, saying he prefers it this way. This treatment has a strong parallel to the tale of two Chinese Opera stars across several tumultuous decades of Chinese history in "Farwell my Concubine". Here a 

boy forced, beaten into playing women's parts in the Opera, raped by one patron, and seduced by another comes to embrace his fate. In the end he causes his own death out of frustrated and unrequited love for his totally heterosexual and perhaps oblivious best friend and co-star. In both cases there are scattered clues that indicate that fate and the basic nature of the boys conspired to bring about the drama. This wasn't choice but coincidence based on the intrinsic nature of the boys.

I marvel at these stories, with their transgender elements and their homosexual elements simply because the characters in each are treated with dignity and respect. These are not caricatures. Their lives may be tragedies, fated by Gods, but they are human tragedies, not sexualized parodies. I'm hard pressed to think of any big budget American film that treats gender crossing with such care and decency, as drama, not travesty