Meet the Beat

Zatoichi is Takeshi Kitano's first foray into directing a samurai film, but he's long been familiar with deadly weapons. A look at Kitano's bestand bloodiestmovies:

Violent Cop (1989): Dirty Harry does Tokyo in Kitano's directorial debut, an exercise in anger mismanagement that features Kitano as an avenging officer fighting corruption inside the police force

Sonatine (1993): Kitano gets existential in his portrayal of a burned-out yakuza boss shipped off to Okinawa. Despite his ennui, Kitano rouses himself to massacre everyone in sight

Fireworks (1998): Winner of the top prize at the Venice...