There is nothing in western cinema like Takeshi Kitano. He is an action maestro, an art-house auteur, a slapstick comic and a children television’s favourite all rolled into one.

This film, which won the Silver Lion for best director at the Venice Film Festival in 2003, and also the Audience Award (Leone del Pubblico) at the same festival, and the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto festival in the same year, has him combining all his various talents in one film, which is not usual, not even in Japan.

Set in 19th century Japan, this is Kitano’s first period film and he himself stars as the hero, a blind, itinerant blond masseur. He is also a brilliant swordsman and a successful gambler.

Zatoichi comes to a country town dominated by two battling clans who are themselves being replaced by an even more ruthless gang.

Other characters that are brought into the story include a former samurai offering himself to the dominant gang to pay for his wife’s medical expenses, and a pair of beautiful geishas (one of them a boy in disguise) who are seeking revenge on the criminals who killed all their family 10 years earlier.

Other figures are plainly slapstick: an idiot neighbour lad who dreams of being a samurai and runs round and round all day yelling in what he imagines is a bloodcurdling way, and a foolish nephew of the old woman who takes Zaroichi in, who first expresses a desire to dress like a woman and then fancies himself a warrior-master, with farcical results.

Obviously, this being a samurai film, the old blind man with a stick turns out to be a consummate swordsman who wreaks mayhem in sizzling fight scenes, where blood spouts like geysers.

At the end, however, the film wraps itself up in a wonderful finale where the liberated peasants break into an elaborately choreographed tap-dance that has you tapping along with them.