One of the delights of browsing Hulu, if there’s too much time on one’s hand, is the possibility of unearthing certain treasures — be it TV shows like the underappreciated “Remington Steele” or films like the Japanese classic series “Zatoichi.”In releasing “Zatoichi” and five of its sequels on Hulu, Criterion Collection continues an outstanding job of providing classic foreign and domestic films in the best quality possible.”Zatoichi” is about a blind masseur who travels Japan during the Tokugawa period (1600 – 1868). The military ruled Japan in this era, so warriors and mercenaries with their ability to enforce law and order through arms became the most powerful caste in the country. Following an expert swordsman and an unwilling accomplice in several adventures involving inept crime bosses and puny gang members, “Zatoichi” represents the simplest example of the samurai film genre known as chanbara.Samurai films are divided into jidai-geki and chanbara, according to Japanese film critic Nicholas Rucka. The jidai-geki are period (or historical) films which focus less on action than on political intrigue, romance, societal oppression and everyday life. Popular examples include Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran” and Kenji Mizoguchi’s “Sansho the Bailiff.” These films are usually more about characters than swordfighting, which was the purview of chanbara films.”The chanbara,” notes Rucka, is “named for the onomatopoetic sound that two (or more) clashing swords make.” These films are heavy on action. They examine the futility of lives lived in violence, implicitly criticizing the feudal system and its emphasis on group honor above individual integrity.The first film, “The Tale of Zatoichi” begins with a feud between two clans. Zatoichi is hired to fight a masterless samurai Miki Hirate, who is employed by the other clan. He meets Hirate after taking the job and befriends him. During the final showdown, Zatoichi has to choose between duty to his employer and to his friend.Zatoichi is brilliantly portrayed by Shintaro Katsu. In truth, Katsu is Zatoichi (though Takeshi Kitano’s 2003 interpretation has its virtues). His world-weariness and terse demeanor meld into an intensity that borders on the majestic. How does an outcast, an apparently disabled man — who admittedly becomes superhuman when he wields a sword — handle himself with such dignity and tenacity emanating an infectious empathy? In a way, Katsu resembles Clint Eastwood’s ‘man with no name’ in the spaghetti westerns. Both characters are stabilizing forces in a contentious world, willing to be hired out to the highest bidder, with the understanding that only conscience dictates what their actions will be. Even if Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns were modeled on the Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo,” Toshiro Mifune’s relish in killing the bad guys seems antithetical to the disgust Katsu (and Eastwood) feel with the lives they live and the jobs they have to do.”Zatoichi” makes use of both interior and exterior cinematic space. Inside the houses, order is usually maintained, the camera shots are usually eye-level shots, rigid as the straight lines mapping out the doors and floors. Here pretence is the game. Once the camera moves outdoors, tracking the characters and picking up the dusty roads, the fetid marshes, the thatched huts surrounded by knolls, we see nature as it is and is meant to be. Harsh and unforgiving, here is where the battles are fought, where men like Zatoichi excel in combat.The description given above the film might ultimately make it appear to be an oddity, the idle fascination of a cineaste unsullied by popular taste, but this is far from the case. The film’s muted good vs. evil dichotomy — its tension between duty and desire — is not a Japanese phenomenon by any chance. It is the heart of film noir, from “Double Indemnity” to “LA Confidential.” Hence, don’t be scared by novelty. As critic Derek Hill notes,  “[Zatoichi] without a doubt, achieves a greatness that only a few films ever attain.”Freke Ette is a political theory graduate student from Uyo, Nigeria. You can follow him on Twitter @TDR_fette. 
—-Contact Freke Ette at [email protected]