Cast overview: | |||
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Yôko Matsuyama | ... | Oichi |
Gorô Ibuki | ... | Gennosuke | |
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Tamayo Mitsukawa | ... | Kotoe (as Kiyoko Inoue) |
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Mayumi Arai | ... | Omiyo the Orphan Girl |
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Maya Maki | ... | Otama the Dagger Thrower |
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Rokkô Toura | ||
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Jun Hamamura | ... | Tessai |
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Gajirô Satô | ... | Hanji the Orphan Boy |
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Katsumi Munakata | ... | Samurai |
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Himawari Sisters | ... | Akamatsu Group Singers |
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Shin'ichi Yanagisawa | ||
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Yôichi Numata | ||
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Asahi Kurizuka | ... | Sakon Shishido |
Oichi, the blind swordswoman, receives a scroll with a secret message from a dying courier, that must be handed to Murobuse, a high officer of the Shogunate. Her path is full of obstacles that delay her, or put her life in danger, from hungry orphans to a dagger thrower in a carnival, from robbers to a rival samurai... Will the secret of how to produce a new kind of explosive fall in the wrong hands? Written by Artemis-9
I saw a Mandarin dubbed English subtitled version of this film intended for Chinese audiences christened LADY TIGER AND SWORD.
Sister Oichi is a blind swordswoman hired to carry an important scroll of unknown contents, (since she can't see them), to a local scientist. On the journey she helps a pair of homeless teenage siblings and is challenged by a great number of swordsmen who try to take the scroll from her. We eventually learn that the scroll contains a formula for a powerful bomb. A wicked government general has sent an army to attain the scroll against the 13 year old emperor's wishes for the bomb not to be used as a military weapon.
This is another of the many, and understandably, post Hiroshima `big bombs are bad' film plots. CRIMSON BAT may be a poor man's ZATOICHI but Yoko Matsuyama's portrayal of Sister Oichi is pretty fine. Okay so she's no Junko Fuji (Red Peony Gambler) but she has a sweet motherly face which adds an unusual element to her bloody fights. The action & pacing are decent and the setting and costumes are quite lovely.