Takeshi Kitano's resuscitation of the sightless samurai from the long-running action series of the Sixties into the Seventies. Kitano's blind swordsman -- or, in his acting persona, Beat Takeshi's blind swordsman -- is also a blond swordsman, and only the devotee will know whether the surprise revelation at the end is sanctioned by tradition. Otherwise, the treatment is as respectful as necessary for so unswallowable a premise. (One note of inanity creeps into it when one of the characters wonders aloud about the mysterious stranger, deep into the body count: "Could he be Zatoichi?" How many blind swordsmen, for God's sake, are afoot in feudal Japan?) The quicker-than-the-eye and gushier-than-a-fireplug swordplay is invariably invigorating, but there is nothing much to fill up the time in between exhibitions of it: our hero, passing himself off as a humble masseur, wanders into the midst of a turf war à la Yojimbo, and the "story," interspersed with momentum-killing flashbacks, consists of whittling down the two sides. All of this is done with Kitano's precision technique, his spareness, his steadiness -- qualities powerless to deliver a kick to the stagnation. The Riverdance-like finale could be counted a plus only by the predisposed. (2003) — Duncan Shepherd