My Tattoo: Session 4: Shading

Session 4: May 9, 2009 (4 hrs.)
Almost there! Intense 4 hrs. of shading done yesterday. Made much progress. Background all done. More than half of the Koi is done. Looks more and more like a Yakuza tats now. Just one more session next month to finish the fish and touch-ups..... in time for summer.

KEYHUNTER!

While I'm on my Japanese kick......this Japanese detective action TV series from the 60's stays on my mind for over thirty years! A little known TV series to North American viewers, Keyhunter was a hugely popular series that was on air from 1968-1973. Even my Japanese tattoo artist remembered the series fondly from his childhood days.

One of the reason for it's popularity was the cast, an ensemble of young talented actors led by the veteran Japanese movie screen legend Tamba Tetsuro ("You Only Live Twice").





And to round up the exciting cast ..... the one and only Sonny Chiba ("Kill Bill")!

The catchy Keyhunter theme song played in the closing credits every week was sung by the leading lady of the series Nogiwa Yoko, who also happened to be Sonny Chiba's wife from 1967-1994. (Click here to watch the action-packed series opening sequence on Youtube).

The Premise: Banded together by Japan's Kokusai Keisatsu (Universal Police i.e. INTERPOL) branch to tackle those crimes and cases that go beyond the scope of Japanese Law Enforcement, the Keyhunter are a group of former police officers and amateur sleuths. They are lead by the dapper, fedora wearing former Police Inspector Kuroki played by Tetsuro...how could I resist?

Unfortunately I have never seen this series released on DVD.

ICHI....the new blind swords(wo)man!

It's been awhile since my last entry. I have been distracted by a new hobby.....digging for images posted by bloggers around the world. This hunger for images is totally addictive. I've been spending hours and hours at home just searching for images, after images, after images. Not totally a waste of time really. There are literally millions of images (besides porn) out there on line. Many of them are beautiful, many are thought-provoking. It's a great way to escape.

OK...back to my own personal blog. I have been a huge fan of the Zatoichi movies ever since the 60's. I was too young then to go to the cinemas to see the original Zatoichi movies. They were considered too violent for kids of my age. However, my parents were loyal fans of the movie series also. I always heard their reviews when they came back from the cinemas. In fact the original movies with Shintaro Katsu playing Zatoichi were an immensely popular franchise in the 60s. They were publicized so much it was hard to miss them. So when the original movies became available on VHS in the 80's, I watched almost all of them. Then again on DVD when they came out in the 90's.

There were originally 26 Katsu Zatoichi movies made. Unfortunately only 25 of theme are available on DVD now. Apparently the rights for number 14 of the series "Zatoichi Pilgrimage" was tied up with the Miramax company. It's like the holy grail for Zatoichi collectors. It has never been released in NTSC.

Then in 2003, Takeshi "Beat" Kitano recreated the character in an updated version of "Zatoichi". There are hundreds of reviews out there on line. I personally thought it was a good but not outstanding remake. Nobody can beat the coolness of the one and only Shintaro Katsu. Just like Sean Connery created the screen version of James Bond. Shintaro created the screen version of Zatoichi.

Not too long ago, I found out that there was yet another re-incarnation of the Zatoichi character recently released in the form of a young blind girl. Haven't seen any DVDs of this new movie yet. I can't wait to see it one day. Theoretically the premise works. A young blind girl in the chaotic male dominant Samurai period of Japan. One can easily imagine the dangers that the girl must have to encounter. Anyone who has already seen the movie please feel free to add your review or comment.