Crimson Bat- Blind Swordswoman

I have a really bad feeling about this movie. I think I am going to regret it later. Imagine this:

Interviewer: How do you challenge yourself intellectually outside of school or work?

Me: I analyze and write about how media portrays the social model of disability across different cultures.

Interviewer: That's great! Can you give me an example?

Me: Well, there's a 1969 Japanese samurai revenge film called 'Crimson Bat- Blind Swordswoman'...


It starts with a girl running through a rainstorm and yelling for her mother not to leave her there. Already this movie is promising- the picture quality is awful and the dialogue is hilariously overwritten.

Mother: Please forgive me, my darling. I wish we could take you with us. Please forgive me for abandoning you I don't know whether I am doing the right thing or not. But I love him and I can't give him up. Please forgive us.

This is going to be fun.

There is a fire and a tree falls on her. If a tree falls in a movie and nobody has seen it, does it make a sound?

The answer is yes, a very poorly edited sound.

The girl wakes up and there are POV shots of total darkness alternating with shots of her face. This is a good, clever way to show blindness. It means that we don't need a clumsy narration or cue card to tell us she is blind.

The movie does it anyway.

For the first  2 minutes, I had no idea what language the subtitles were in. I had to Google a section and found out it was Dutch. So this Japanese movie is dubbed in English with Dutch subtitles. Okay.


After the credits, a gang chases after a man. He brilliantly escapes using the clever trick of ducking into the weeds, waiting for the gang to pass, and then running the opposite way. It's so sophisticated, it could be in Looney Toons or something.

The gang finds him. He didn't anticipate the gang turning around.

He also didn't anticipate the titular swordswoman to conviently be in that specific place. I kind of thought we would see her training to swordfight after she was blinded. But what do I know? Maybe the crippled masters would have been better if they just cut out the training scenes and made them kung-fu masters off-screen.

The swordswoman immediately takes the side of the man. The gang tells the swordswoman that the police are looking for the man. The swordswoman reacts rationally and fights them all.

The blood effects are hilarious. Each time she hits one of them, the movie cuts to red paint splashing on a blank canvas.

This is called "cutting-edge" modern art.

The swordswoman kills the gang. Then she asks whether the gang was telling the tuth that the man has a bounty on him.

She just killed an entire group of people who were trying to capture someone for whom the police are looking. And she did initiate the violence. It's a good thing that the man isn't a legitimate criminal.

Two people come and see the carnage. Turns out one of the men isn't dead. He has to stay alive long enough explain the plot to the new woman. She vows to get the reward before the blind woman. MOTIVE ESTABLISHED.

The blind woman and the old man are at a house, and she insists he takes a bath. She playfully tugs at his sleeve and tears it, revealing a tattoo. He angrily accuses her of seeing the tattoo, but she reminds him that she is blind. Awkward.


The blind woman asks how old the man is. The man says "Let me 'see'..about 53,"

Nice passive-agressive use of the word "see".

She tells the old man and the audience that her grandfather had raised her. Flashback to her and her grandfather talking about a newly-wed couple and how she won't get married. Gang member are waiting at the house, You can tell the main one is the villain because he is wearing an imposing hat.

Also, his name is Devil Denzo, Kind of a give-away,

The main character's name is Oichi. Thanks for telling us.

Exposition time- her grandfather says that Oichi's mother is running a brothel up north to Takasaki because a traveller told them two days ago. Also she had run away with a gambler at the beginning.

The gang members tell the grandfather that he "knows too much" and has to die. I'm glad they aren't using cliché motivations.

After a brief fight scene, the grandfather dies and Oichi finds his body.

End flashback.

Oichi says that he wasn't her grandfather. Okay. His name was Osake.

The gang members come in as the old man escapes to Takasaki

Takasaki is the home of the gang. It turns out that the tattoo of the old man is actually a sign of the gang. The person who saw the dead bodies tells the rest of them that the blind woman killed everyone.

Oichi goes by boat to visit Osake's grave. She spouts some more hilariously overwritten dialogue.

"There's no one to take care of me now? I only wish to god they had killed me as well.  What have I got to live for?"

The gang appears. This is known as "on-demand service". How many years after Osake died and the gang just hangs around his grave waiting for his goddaughter?  Oichi accuses them of murdering her grandfather. Danzo does the rational thing and decides to kill her.

Now it's time for another intense fight scene where she kills everyone easily, right? The plot says no, because we are only 22 minutes into a revenge film. She just flails around wildly and falls. one of the gang members goes to kill her, but a man randomly comes out of the weeds to tackle him. What is it with this movie and people hiding in convienent places?

The savior folds his arms and says he doesn't like what the gang is doing. he calls them cowards for trying to kill a blind girl.

See, this is ableist. Why should gang members not kill someone because she is blind?

The new man kills all three of the gang members but can't kill Danzo because it is only 24 minutes into a revenge film.

The next part is dumb. The new man decides to teach her how to fight. But she already fought well when she rescued the criminal. So she just forgot? Why?

Oh well, training time. with poetic snow? I love how seriously this takes itself. The man throws some sticks at her and she slashes them

He says he will throw the next one silently, but there is still a sound. Is it too much effort to NOT put in a post-production sound effect? Or did they forget to read the script?

It would be awesome to see the training she does over the next few months. The movie doesn't do that. It just has a voice-over telling us that she made a lot of progress in the next few months. The next scene shows her successfully  deflecting the attacks.

Lesson; Hard work pays off, but jump cuts pay off more..

 The next scene is in an inn, The man says he has nothing left to teach her. Then he gives Oichi a sheathed sword. But he says that she is just to use it as a walking stick and never to draw it.  That's telling Pandora to use the box as a stepping-stool.

The teacher tells Oichi that she should settle down and get married, facetiously saying even he would marry her. Oichi takes this as serious and runs off to get him some wine. The man decides to take off without saying goodbye. Usually alcohol takes longer to destroy marriages.

A drunk man tries to assault Oichi. Oichi draws the sword/stick and kills him. Is it a chekov's gun if it "fires" in very next scene? Then she goes back to the inn and finds her prospective husband has left.  A maid comes in and says she is surprised that Oichi is still there. They exchange some more hilariously over-written dialogue:

"He isn't a bad man, he's the nicest man I've ever met. And stop saying I'm blind. It doesn't make any difference.  Or isn't a blind woman supposed to fall in love?"

Have I mentioned that I love this movie?

Cut to a woman with a pink bow in her hair she just accepted a man's (clearly pre-pubescent) daughter to work at her brothel in order pay off his debt. This movie could take lessons on creating subtle villains from Care Bears.

I think it is Oichi's mother, because she runs the brother

Suddenly the beggar  from the beginning of the movie appears and talks to the little girl, named Oyoni. He asks her for some water and cries about her predicament. The next day, the villains come to collect Oyoni. We are halfway through this revenge movie, by the way. Kind of late to set up the act to be avenged.

The begger runs after the gang members carrying her away and asks oyoni where she thinks she is being taken. The gang beats him up. not sure what his strategy was, but it wasn't that well-thought out.

They bring Oyoni back to the brothel and the plot gets...confusing. It's like all the plotlines converge at the brothel. This is probably me being racist, but I honestly am having trouble identifying characters.

1. Oyoni comes back

2. The female and male villaind from the beginning run the brothel. They talk about the beggar with the tattoo.

3. the samarai (teacher) comes and drinks some wine.

The begger and Oichi talk on a hill. Oichi asks why the beggar is so upset about this one girl. The beggar says she is his daughter and that twenty years ago, he ran away from the police and hid her for safety. Oichi says that, if she was in his shoes, she wouldn't want to see her daughter in case she was ashamed.

You know, when I picked up the DVD case of a movie called Crimson Bat, Blind Swordswoman, I was not expecting an intricate plot with so many characters with backstories.

The movie reminds us that the villians are evil. They are gambling. After chasing a beggar for a reward (who we know is not a criminal now), and running a brothel that accepts underage daughters as debt payments, shooting dice doesn't really make them more unsavory.

One man tells another that the main villain woman is desirable because she is a good gambler. What is with this movie and promoting alcohol and gambling as positive relationship values?

Oichi enters the brothel.

Q: Why is Oichi a great gambler?

A: She never rolls snake-eyes.

Is a joke that the gang does not make. The bartender asks where Oichi is going, because she is blind. Oichi asks "Aren't blind people are allowed in?"

The female villain says she has something to settle with Oichi. Remember her motive? "I will not let that blind bitch get a hold of that reward." I can apply a lot of adjectives to this movie, but "predictable" is not one of them. For some reason, I thought the confrontation in this revenge film about a swordswoman would be a lot more Hamlet and a lot less Guys and Dolls.

I mean, she wouldn't know if the dice were spotless.

Surprisingly suspenseful music plays as they gamble. By far more intense than any of the fight scenes. we are about 2/3s through the movie, So hopefully the climax will be an actual swordfight and not something like roulette.

The male villain enters and the samurai recognizes him. he asks to play with Oichi alone because she is doing too well. Oichi asks to see the dice box. this is the plot of the Twilight Zone episode "The Prime Mover", except Oichi isn't telekinetic. The female villain tosses her the dice box and Oichi throws her sword at it, pinning it to the ceiling. Then she throws a ring up, which lands around the sword and causes the box to fall. As it falls. she slashes it open to reveal two hidden dice.

Why was the most impressive swordplay saved for looking inside a dice box?

She accuses them of cheating and cashes in. The gang learns it's lesson about cheating and let her go.

not really, they chase after her. The female villain finds her first because it would be less dramatic if a random gang member found her.

The confrontation is honestly...really underwhelming compared to the gambling scene. The villain waves her flail around and doesn't try to attack Oichi until after she trips. The flail hits a tree and they run away.

The samurai comes to see Oichi. Oichi says she has changed in the past half-hour of film. The samurai asks whether she has found her mother, and Oichi says she doesn't want to meet her because she is evil. Now we need a new plot for the final half-hour, right?

In the next scene, the beggar sneaks into the brothel to rescue Oyoni. He just scampers across the top of the building and gets in through a floorboard. okay. because he is wearing a black hood, he is unrecognizable. That's how it works.

The beggar grabs one of the prostitutes and asks where Oyani is, claiming she is his daughter. The prostitute says "In the back somewhere." The beggar climbs up the wall with some sort of hooks attached to his hands because it looks cooler than going through the door. He finds Oyoni and goes after her, but a dart hits him. Honestly, what did you expect?  It's Danzo, the head gang member from the flashback near the beginning of the movie.

Uncle Noheart was more subtle.

Okay, the plot comes together. Denzo is the Leader of the gang. He killed Yosake because he knew about Danzo's "Early days." That's the same reason he sent the gang to kill the beggar at the beginning of the movie.

Denzo says he had to kill Oyoni after trying to assault her. That...escalated. Denzo kills the begaar. That escalated.

The gang walks down the hallway and trip a blind man yelling for a massage. Comic relief?

Oichi meets her mother- the woman with the pink bow who runs the brothel. This movie is confusing. I thought it would just be mindless swordfighting. Oichi says she has brought something that may interest the head of the brothel. It's her stack of gold that she won from gambling. She asks to buy back Oyoni with 70 gold pieces. But her mother says that 20 gold pieces is a poor profit she might be able to get 100-200 in the future. oichi asks for 2 or 3 days to raise the money.

When Oichi's mother asks why she is so invested in Oyoni, Oichi tells the story of the beggar who hid his daughter and then learned she was to be sold to a brothel. her mother starts crying, and Oichi says it was almost her story, because her mother left her when she was young.

Her mother says she will think about it. Her mother asks for her name and what villiage she is from, and of course they are related.

But they don't tell each other that. Instead, her mother asks how she became blind and Oichi tells her about the tree that fell on her. Right before they confess to each other...someone comes in yelling about two dead bodies. priorities.

Oichi and her mother run and to the warehouse. her mother tells Oichi that it is Oyoni and the beggar, Oichi says "Well, at least you had a few moments of happiness"

Oichi asks who killed Oyoni. she spouts some vague attempts at philosophy to make this movie seem good. She asks why people have to do bad things to each other. . Why don't they see things the way they could be? Well, because some are blind.

Also, she does a tirade against her mother being a prostitute

Oichi threatens her mother unless she talks. Masagalo and her mother worked together. Who is Masagalo? Oichi raises her sword and...the samurai comes in to reveal some plot information.

He knows who killed Oyoni and the beggar, and it is the same person who killed her godfather and tried to kill Oyoni. The samurai reveals that it is...Devil Denzo.

Um, we already knew that?

Alright, more reveals. 20 years ago there were three criminals: Denzo, Yasoke, and Nahi. Nahi was the beggar. Yasoke was Oyoni's godfather. All three had playing card tattoos.  Devil denzo turned the other two in for a reward.
Nahi went to prison, but Yasoke escaped and raised Oichi. Denzo had already killed Yasoke in the flashback, and he killed Nahi in the past scene.

Not going to lie, I didn't see this coming. And it makes sense. And it was satisfying. Why does a movie called Crimson Bat- the Blind Swordswoman have a good plot?

The samurai says he had arranged to meet denzo that night, but that oichi can take his place. Her mother tries to go after her, but the samurai stops her and says she is lucky her daughter didn't kill her. Damn.

The gang members decide to go and kill Oichi samarai goes up and kills most of them. Denzo runs to kill Oichi, but she deflects the attack and they have a showdown.

Eh, not as good as if they were gambling


We only have four minutes left

They do that thing where they run at each other and it is obvious one of them got pierced through the stomach, but you don't know which one unless you look at the title of the movie.

Blood drips onto the ground. Oichi does some swordfighting and she throws Denzo onto a tree.

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The samarui narrates that Oichi left the village with her sword, cane, and a lot of lonliness. When she left, her sightless eyes were filled with tears. The end.

I enjoyed this movie. It took itself seriously enough for me to be invested, but not so seriously that it was ridiculous. the plot and writing was composed of almost entirely cliches, but they were cliches that worked. Not sure why she is a crimson bat, however.