from Zatoichi: the blind swordsman. I think, if you're just counting the time the swords are actually unsheathed until one person is dead, this is the fastest swordfight I've seen in any samurai action film.
Iv always wondered how many times in history there have been genuine sword fights that lasted more than a minute. I’m sure it’s rare but it must have happened a few times on some battlefield, some castle wall, some forgotten bridge. At some point in history, two legends faces off amongst the chaos and gave it their all only to be forgotten by history and washed away by time
Actually sword fights could be long and very exhausting. The loser was the first to get out of stamina. Considering both contenders were wearing a full plate armor. Search the combat of the 30 in the hundred years war. 15 of the best champions of england vs 15 of the best french champions fighting to death. They were fighting for 7 hours, 9 or so died if I remember well, and all of them were injured.
Depend of the type of fight, as @jordirex said could last long. Knight in the Middle age for exemple, with efficient armors could have combat that actually took a bit of time
Zatoichi prefers a reverse grip for a faster draw but it gives him less range. Hattori knows this and knows he is faster than Ichi. But Hattori's standard grip draw requires three moves (draw, raise, strike) to Ichi's two (draw, strike). So he takes a page from Ichi's book and switches to reverse grip. If it's two moves vs. two moves, he can be faster. Hattori stands at a distance where Ichi will need to step in to use his shorter blade. Hattori can block the initial strike on the draw, which will leave Ichi with a weaker followup attack that he can easily block with his scabbard. That's when he'll strike and-- Ichi switches to forward grip. Now Ichi is in attack distance, and Hattori is out of distance. Hattori draws his sword but his grip is wrong to defend from the overhead strike. He swings but Ichi has already struck. Fight over.
Very good analysis! In fencing, keeping the right distance and pace is the most important part. Ichi must realized that Hattori is standing closer than usual or wait for him to approach closer. Either way, Ichi switch to reguler grip and strike first. In this distance, Hattori was end with surprised. There is no bullshit 10 minutes fight and that is why this movie is a legend.
Thank you for being that guy in Initial D who tells all the other people (who just happen to all look dead inside) what the hell is actually going on ❤️❤️❤️
Hattori signed his death when he let out the chuckle. Zatoichi immediately knew he had a plan and just a flick of the sword and Hattori mentally stumbled.
@@PeptoAbismol Yea the chuckle tells Ichi that Hattori has taken his bait and thinks he currently wins at this range/grip/speed, that's what signals Ichi to switch grips and go.
Later, Zatoichi would recover his sight when he stopped dyeing his hair. Then he bought a castle and challenged everyday people to complete his obstacle courses.
I like how his success is predicated on zatoichi holding his sword in a specific way and he predicts it based on that and then a split second before they engage zatoichi switches his hold, ensuring the guy's defeat, you can even see his heart sink a bit when he sees it but he's in too close to back off so he just goes through with it.
think of it like Sherlock Holmes predicting how the fight was going to play out before it happens. Only when Zatoichi switched his grip and attacked, Hattori didn't have time to predict the attack and counter. Even still, not for nothing he was still able to wound Zatoichi.
I think in one of the old shintaro katsu movies there was a mention of the name of the swordstyle he uses with the swordcane. Muraku i think it was. Now, the part some of us (including me) forget is that ichi was a skilled swordsman before losing his sight and relearning kenjutsu. Who's to say he stopped practicing his old style. Being proficient in more than one style is the mark of a good swordsman :3 Plus hattori (i think that was the name) might be a callback to an old zatoichi plotline from the start of the shintaro katsu era.
Hattori counts on Zatoich to draw the blade same way he did in their encounter in the tavern, where Zatoichi got the better of Hattori. But as you say Zatoichi switches his hold on the sword in the last moment. The screenwriter has given small story even to the fight itself. Commendable.
@@joeysfieldherpingadventure8861 My understanding is that this is more typical of a Samurai sword fight. No defense. Just who's quickest and likely both killed or severely injured. Helps keep people more polite.
As many has said. "Be careful of the old men in a profession where people die young" that young swordsman made the first mistake by underestimating him.
He didn't underestimate him, they met before and he realized that zatoichi(the blind old man) was in fact really strong, zatoichi also knew about how strong was the other samurai and didn't want to fight him, and i think i recall the samurai training a lot in case he had to fight zatoichi And i dont see why u think he underestimated zatoichi
The craziest thing about this fight is that the dude he just killed was an extremely skilled swordsman who took on 20 guys on his own and killed them with ease.
Great comment. I knew there had to be something from the scene i was missing, with the complete music cut. Great context. The sudden realization of doom perfectly meets an abrubt end of sound.
@@ajayrife The guy acting as Zatoichi is pretty famous actor in Japan tho I only know him from this film. The old Zatoichi films had a different actor.
I think a lot of people interpret this as Zatoichi having laid out a trap from the outset and Hattori stepping into it like an idiot, but I like to think that the "hm" sound tipped Zatoichi off and made him switch tactics last minute, because it revealed how confident Hattori was about the outcome. In other words, it was Hattori's overconfidence and the telegraphing resulting from it that made him lose the fight.
It's so funny how Hattori was showcasing his expert assassin skills and swordsmanship throughout this entire movie, only to get easily killed by just one slash by Zatoichi. I guess it goes to show, Hattori was badass.... just not nearly as badass as Zatoichi though. Hattori's skills just weren't enough to outmatch Zatoichi's tack sharp senses and speed. Zatoichi is known for being so fast that he already slices up his opponents before they even fully drew their sword.
We see something similar in "The last of the Mohicans". All through the movie, Magua (the BBEG) is shown to be a real badass, killing lots of people in brutal ways. So when he is about to fight old man Chingachgook (whose skills are good, but haven't been shown much yet) near the end, of course you expect a really big fight... But then it doesn't last long. :D
I think that one smirk is the very thing that determines the outcome. Zatoichi noticed it, so he changed his style, which caught Hattori off guard and changed the outcome.
Fun fact: Zatoichi (The blind swordsman) is also where Guilty Gear's Zato-1, who's also a blind fighter got his name from. The 1 in Japanese translating to ichi.
I read some comments here about the sword-drawing techniques, the chuckle, and underestimating the opponent. However, I think the problem is that one person depends on the future, whereas the other stays in the present. The future became a trap and prevented the swordsman from adapting to his situation. He was cut before he even drew. Even though he has eyes, he was blinded by his mind, whereas the other is blind, but his mind is open.
That's why one of military maxim is: "Your plan is based on your enemy's capability, not based on your guess about your enemy's next move." Then there is this other maxim: "No plan survive the first encounter with the enemy."
The fact is that, in many *depictions of sword fights (as well as in the “wire-tag” of the modern sport called “fencing”), if performed IRL, BOTH combatants would be mortally-wounded.
@@Halofreakanoid I know text can be misinterpreted, so I'm not arguing or debating you when I ask this; I haven't watched the clip in a year, but I thought I remembered blind taking a hit and clutching his wound afterwards. Am I wrong? And if so, where was I wrong?
@@omesonyabs5244 - The blood squirt is planned out, but it's supposed to squirt out realistically, unfortunately the prop master made a mistake and end up having the blood gushing like a loose fire hose. According to interviews, fixing, blood effects and the clothes and reseting the shot would take a day or so, but Akira Kurasawa was happy with shot made, especially two actors acting which he though could never be re-enacted again, decided to keep the shot. In an interview of Tatsuya Nakadai, the wide eye suprised faced he had after getting slashed is partly because of his real suprise at amount of blood that came gushing out.
This reminds me of sherlock holmes shadow games movie, at the end where sherlock fights the professor and both think on how to counter each others moves, good movie tbh
The only times that melee would probably last longer than like a minute is if both opponents were in armor and neither had a good means of defeating the others, if they were exhausted, or if they weren’t trying to kill each other.
If it's pure 1v1, they would stand there in stance for several minutes or so or circling around trying to find opening, it could actually last very long if you count the time they did not clashed
From what a guy I knew that studied history of japanese sword fighting, this is fairly accurate. A couple of seconds was a long fight in a duel from what he said.
The Japanese developed a martial style with the katana that was meant to kill with the unsheathing of the blade. It wasn’t a duel like westerners think of, honor bound clash of steel against heavy plated armor, but rather an earnest attempt to kill your opponent in one fluid motion.
I always thought this kind of duel to be unrealistic, but I don't know. I thought a realistic katana fight would be like the one shown in The Twilight Samurai. They last longer, but I don't know. Most of the time, I think scenes like these are just for dramatic purpose.
perfectly captures the psychological battle of masters. He basically couth im off guard by switching. And switched becuase he heard Hatori's confident "Mhm". He assumed he already won and commited to the strategy, which Ichi used. This fightscene is pure masterpiece!
Hattori's final words, as he lay dying on the ground... "Fuck this bullshit 50/50 mix he can just toss out in one frame and he's not even plus on block did you SEE how much damage it did like fuck this do the devs even play their own shit come on"
This is a typical Japanese sword fight called Kenjutsu. As explained in the book Death’s End by Lui Cixin: “In this cosmi arena, Luo Ji faced not the fancy moves of Chinese sword fighting, resembling dance more than war; nor the flourishes of Western sword fighting, designed to show off the wielder’s skill; but the fatal blows of Japanese kenjutsu. Real Japanese sword fights often ended after a very brief struggle lasting no more than half a second to two seconds. By the time the swords had clashed but once, one side had already fallen in a pool of blood. But before this moment, the opponents stared at each other like statues, sometimes for as long as ten minutes. During this contest, the swordsman’s weapon wasn’t held by the hands, but by his heart. The heart-sword, transformed through the eyes into the gaze, stabbed into the depths of the enemy’s soul. The real winner was determined during this process: In the silence suspended between the two swordsmen, the blades of their spirits parried and stabbed as soundless claps of thunder. Before a single blow was struck, victory, defeat, life, and death had already been decided.”
Holy cow that was like seeing frame for frame some scenes in vagabond, whenever musashi imagines his own death or someone else's so many times before he actually cuts the man down
There's a similar mental duel in Hero that's pretty good. Jet Li vs. Donnie Yen. The whole movie is mystical style, but the idea is similar. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AeeoEpmyb2Y.html One of the fascinating things about Asian weapon arts was that they were so strictly orthodox to their forms, so over-trained, and so cross-trained - that it may be accurate that fighters could anticipate entire fights between equal masters in their minds, merely by virtue of their weapons, their styles, and their environment: you can play it out like a series of game moves. There were strict rules of honorable engagement, so no pocket-sand or hidden blades, and virtually no creativity of motion: which made the fights extremely predictable. It also made them over-rigid and vulnerable when encountering any creativity (pirates, street-fighters, etc) or foreign styles.
The older Zatoichi movies were better and I think he had a few fights faster than this one. I could be wrong but I'll guarantee if you watch the movies you won't mind if you're wrong either. They were great to watch.
Beat Takashi did it justice!...I do love Shintaro Katsu no doubt.....Kev go and find Hanzo the Razor!!!... It's Shintaro with no holds barred OUTRAGEOUS!!!...it should be rated X
This reminds me of the Sherlock Holmes movie a few years ago. Robert Downey Jr. was able plan out entire fight sequences in his mind. Unfortunely, this dude is no Sherlock Holmes
Neither was RDJ. That was not Sherlock Holmes. That was an America action hero pretending to be Sherlock Holmes. At least they didn't go woke and make him a black lesbian.
Reminds me of the 2nd film ending. Hattori here was Moriarty. Zatoichi had a plan like Holmes, but Hattori also had a plan for his plan, like Moriarty. So Zatoichi changed his plan quickly to take Hattori down, like what Holmes did to Moriarty.
@@DoctorDeath147 How would you like it if they brought out a film about 9/11, but made it a musical celebrating Muslims striking back at oppression by white people? Or started destroying the war games you seem to like.
Even counting his opponent's momentum, the engagement from first move to the last wound was three seconds and consisted of two strokes total. Everything before it was preparation and posturing. And I just came from the final Obi-Wan vs Maul duel video, which was similar. 38 seconds from drawing the blades until engagement and three seconds for the engagement itself, with three strokes total. Makes one wonder how many duels in history were determined by the initial posturing before the moves were executed in the engagement. "All plans fall upon contact with the enemy," well if the first stroke is already the winner, then that's not much of a worry.
Well there is also the Japanese sword style of Iaido. That's where they literally attack from out of the scabbard. Three moves tops. Usually a block and then a killstrike. Then there is a bonus move called chiburi. It's a quick stylish flick before you resheathe the blade into the scabbard. To flick your vanquished foe's blood off the blade, obviously!
This is pretty accurate. Protracted sword duels didn’t really happen. More often they were over in seconds. Doing a bunch of blocking moves with your sword against a similarly hardened blade would just destroy your sword. You don’t block or parry, you swing to kill. Ideally one well placed swing, and maybe a dodge. Protracted sword fights are fantasy.
To be fair in one on one duels worrying about the condition of your sword for the most part is out the window, you'll parry or block with the blade if you must in order to survive and assuming that you're not planning to fight more people then you'll do what you must to stay alive
Same with hand-to-hand fights. As someone who trained in boxing, I always cringe when I watch movies where they throw 100 punches at each other without getting KO'd and somehow don't end up with concussions. Real fights (bare fists or armed) always end in seconds.
Note how Zatoichi skillfully outplayed the opponent by throwing him a bait in the form of a deliberate blow, so that another samurai would stand up as he needed, and when he heard a grin at 0:34, he realized that his plan had worked and the enemy was open to a deadly blow.
I study Japanese swordsmanship (iaido/kenjutsu), that character getting killed was too prideful, he have all the advantage yet he choose the most risky one because it look cool. Most of the sword sparring we did was attacking our opponent finger, most of the time we getting broken finger, means at that point the youngster in the clip could easily chop off the blind old man he's finger or arms, or leg. He choose to go for the torso which hardest to even slide off due to many layer of clothing, especially in war there were armor plate too.
Blind old yakuza veteran that can bisect a moth in flight simply by focusing on the sound of it's wings and the air they displace. Why would you fight him out of choice.
Y'all keep making that comment not realizing I don't care. It's not a competition, it's just a title so I could upload this clip. I've seen Sanjuro, I'm a huge Kurosawa fan.
