Shintaro Katsu, born in Tokyo in 1931, is one of the giants of postwar Japanese cinema, and remains synonymous with the character Zatoichi. From 1962 he starred as the blind masseur-swordsman across more than two dozen films and a long TV run, driving the series as producer and, later, director. He also headlined the yakuza saga Hoodlum Soldier (1965) and its sequels for Daiei, and worked with his brother Tomisaburo Wakayama across genre pictures. His raw, physical, deeply human screen presence still defines a particular period of Japanese action, and his influence on the chanbara and yakuza traditions is difficult to overstate. Read more