A quick report from a rabid Asian cinema fan who found himself in the gigantic audience on opening night of Takashi Miike's stage version of ZATOICHI. According to "avid fan," the play runs three hours with a twenty-minute intermission, and feels a bit too long with an abundance of overly-talky scenes. However, the sets and costume design are stunning and the action scenes, especially opening and closing massacres by everyone's favorite blind swordsman, are pretty terrific. And a word on the swordsman himself - while not quite in the league of the great Shintaro Katsu or even Takeshi Kitano, "avid fan" says that frequent Miike collaborator and V-cinema god Sho Aikawa both channels Katsu's method of speech in his performance and brings his own unique interpretation of the character to the role, and was greeted on opening night with a raucous ovation. Miike, ever modest, sat mid-theater and wore sunglasses through the whole performance. ZATOICHI continues onstage in its cavernous theater in the middle of sleaze and sex neighborhood Kabuki-cho for another dozen or so performances, then moves out to conquer Osaka and then Nagoya.

(Thanks to the Avid Fan who sent this in)