The Crimson Bat

Though following a number of years after the Zatoichi series was underway, this series beginning in 1969 from the Shochiku film company was clearly influenced by it and possibly even trying to cash in on its enduring popularity. Instead of a blind swordsman though, this series centered on a blind swordswoman. The series only lasted for a little over one year but in that time they made four episodes all running at around 85-minutes. The actress who played Oichi was Yoko Matsuyama – best known at the time for her role on a television show rather than as a film actress. She had been the main character on a popular show called “Seven Faces of Princess Koto” in which she went undercover in feudal times to ferret out crime. After the fourth episode of this series, Yoko quit the entertainment business to focus on home life. The only other film credit I can find of hers is a 1966 film called “Judo Showdown” in which she apparently had a small role.

It is difficult not to compare these films to the Zatoichi series and in most aspects they come up short. The films seem to be on a much smaller budget in terms of production values and they are not able to re-create the sense of Japan from those times as much of the running time takes place either inside buildings or out in the open countryside. And not surprisingly, Yoko is not able to emulate swordsmanship in the same way that Shintaro Katsu was able to in the Zatoichi series – though to a large degree they use the same technique. The films are also less ambitious with smaller set pieces – though they get bigger in the last two films. Even so, the films are quite enjoyable and Yoko creates a fascinatingly ambivalent character who manages to keep surviving though this is not a life that she wants and one that she sadly wishes she could leave. One can also only wonder if the Lady Snowblood films would have been made without the success of these films.
 

Like Zatoichi she wanders about Japan on foot from town to town – though unlike Zatoichi she is a bounty hunter rather than a masseuse and is always impeccably dressed in kimonos with her hair pulled neatly back and her face powdered in white. Her handicap and profession make her a loner, but in each episode she finds herself tangled in other people’s problems and is forced at some point to pull her sword out of its cane – sometimes reluctantly, sometimes not. Though she tries to be tough and distant in love, she always falls for someone and in return is desired by many men, but as she says in one scene “I am not good for any man”. Deep down she wants only to be a normal woman with husband and children but often feels unworthy of male love and in the end she always walks away alone once again. She kills for her living, but as often as not finds herself lending her sword to the side of the oppressed for nothing – simply because it is the right thing to do.

The Crimson Bat: The Blind Swordswoman
Directed by: Matsuda Teiji
Year: 1969
Production Company: Shochiku
Running Time: 84 minutes

The first in the series gives a lot of background on Oichi through various flashbacks. As a child her mother deserted her for a gambler and in the same night the young girl had an accident that caused her to lose her sight. Left alone in the world, a kindly older man takes her in and brings her up, but her world is once again thrown into chaos when a group of men show up one night and kill her adoptive father. She learns that her mother is still alive and is now a brothel owner in another town and Oichi goes to find her. On the way though she comes across the men who killed the old man and she swings her cane wildly at them in anger and they decide that she needs killing before she reveals too much to the wrong people. Fortunately, a gruff samurai comes upon the scene and rescues her.


He sees something special in her – incredible instincts and reflexes - and decides to train her to defend herself. She is a natural and within months is a magnificent swordswoman – able to defend herself simply by sound and her other senses. Before going their separate ways, he tells her to never unsheathe her sword or she will never be able to live a normal life. With these new found skills she moves on to look for her mother. In the narrative that follows Oichi comes across her bitter mother, a man looking for his daughter that he deserted twenty years previously and the man who killed her adoptive father. Revenge ensues.
 

Trapped, Crimson Bat
Directed by: Matsuda Teiji
Year: 1969
Production Company: Shochiku
Running Time: 84 minutes

By the second film in the series, Oichi was using her specialized sword skill as a bounty hunter – tracking men down and killing them in a flashing display of quick swordplay. This is immediately announced as Oichi with her large straw hat hiding her face waits outside an inn for a man with a price of fifty gold pieces on his head . When he comes out she challenges him and after a duel, she carts his lifeless body to the authorities for her reward. She soon finds herself at odds with another female killer – the beautiful Oen (Kikko Matsuoka – "Black Lizard") who carries around a bullwhip that she uses with laughing glee. She and Oichi match up and Oichi makes the mistake of showing her mercy which Oen returns with a pocketful of poisonous snakes thrown at Oichi. One of them bites her and she stumbles off to die, but a poor fisherman (Yasunori Irie) finds her and nurses her back to health.


The two of them slowly fall in love and Oichi relishes the idea of a normal life, but as usual trouble finds her and the edge of her sword. Oen tracks her down and brings along three experts in death to fight Oichi – but after defeating them and coming across other problems in which her specialty is needed, she realizes that she can never have a normal life – her sword which she holds on to like a security blanket will always come between her and such a life. So she walks away again – but not until one final terrific confrontation with Oen and about thirty minions. This last fight is nicely staged and shot – as they surround her Oen bends down in a formal crouch and waits for them to attack. Later the fight becomes very theatrical as the background color suddenly turns blue and it plays out in slo-motion and freeze frames to good effect as if Oichi has entered another world where she is in perfect harmony with her slashing blade. The plot and this final fight seemed perhaps to be influential on the Hong Kong film "Deaf Mute Heroine" that came out in 1971.
 

Watch Out Crimson Bat
Directed by: Ichimura Hirokazu
Year: 1969
Production Company: Shochiku
Running Time: 84 minutes

Within a few minutes of the film's beginning Oichi finds herself in the middle of trouble and knee deep in dead men. A horseman is shot and he falls off but is dragged behind as the horse races down a country road. Oichi hears this and times it just perfectly as she cuts him loose from the horse. It is too late though and on the verge of death, he asks Oichi to deliver a scroll to a man in a nearby village. She accepts his final wish. Soon men looking for the scroll surround her but wish they hadn’t. As she proceeds with her mission, she runs into two orphans and takes them under her wing and then comes across a samurai (Goro Ibuki) who having witnessed her ability needs to challenge her to a duel. The duel is interrupted though before blood is drawn, but he is able to take the scroll away from her.


With her pride damaged, she decides to continue on her quest and goes to the town to look for the samurai with a horde of men still after her since they don’t know she has lost the scroll. The town is under a black cloud – a wealthy man is trying to concoct an explosive device and using the townspeople to make it – with many deaths being the result. The scroll has the correct formula to do this and they attack Oichi to get it. She is forced off a cliff and the samurai finds her and nurses her back to health – and yes they begin to fall in love! Few men can resist a woman with a sharp sword. Other complications ensue to the point where she once again finds it necessary to walk away from people who care about her. When she learns though that the munitions magnate is holding her friends captive, she jumps on a horse and rides into a camp full of waiting killers. This is a fairly large scale bloody fight as this third film in the series definitely notches up the body count.

Crimson Bat: Wanted Dead or Alive
Directed by: Ichimura Hirokazu
Year: 1970
Production Company: Shochiku
Running Time: 83 minutes

The final appearance of the Crimson Bat (a name by the way that appears totally fabricated by the West – there is no reference to it in the films) is the best of the lot – full of action, drama and romance. Oichi helps a woman escape the clutches of a high government official to go off with the man she loves. The official puts a reward on her head of fifty gold pieces and soon a menagerie of bounty hunters is after her skin.  Three of them band together to accomplish this – one an expert swordsman, another a huge judo master and the third is deadly with a chain. To escape, she heads for the fishing town of Itso but soon comes face to face with Sankuro (Yuki  Maguro – Omi in "Shogun"), the swordsman. Their duel in the desert is interrupted by a sandstorm in which Oichi is able to vanish.


Once in Itso Oichi wants only to mind her own business, but the troubles within the town are soon bumping up against her conscious. A corrupt local official – reporting to the one that is after Oichi – has been tasked by Edo to move out the fishermen and build a port in the town. The fishermen want compensation for this, but he refuses to hand it out and he and his men begin to bully the fishermen to to move them out. When a group of hooligans begin pushing around a woman next door to Oichi she ignores it – but when the woman's child is beaten Oichi is soon in the middle of it and knocking the men about (using only her cane which she does when she wants to only teach a lesson in civility). The three bounty hunters also show up, but Sankuro begins to find Oichi most appealing and assists her to escape the other two. Oichi sides with the fishermen in their struggle and comes against a master samurai (Tanba Tetsuro) and a large band of bad guys. The finale turns bloody as she strides into town and does a mini-Azumi on them.
Like the Zatoichi films, the character of Oichi grows on the viewer with each episode as she tries to find a place for herself in society – though in the end her talent with the sword curses her attempts to do so. In some ways she is a more complicated figure than Zatoichi who seems to accept his fate in life and so enjoys the little pleasures – she rails against her fate but also takes great pride and at times pleasure in her ability to wield a sword. It is a shame that the series ended so quickly with so many more miles to go for Oichi.

As far as I know, the films are only out on poor DVD transfers from VHS sources that are dubbed into English and have Danish subtitles. No doubt a good transfer and in Japanese, the films would be even better. As it is:

My rating for the series: 7.5

Background information on series and actress from "Japanese Cinema: The Essential Handbook"