Japan Zatoichi returned 13.7× its production cost, earning $34.2M against a $2.5M budget — one of the highest-return Japan films in our catalog.
Synopsis
座頭市
“His sword made him a hero… his courage made him a legend.”
Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.
The 2002–2004 Japan Window
263 Japan films released in this three-year window, ranked here by audience rating. Zatoichi sits at position #93.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Zatoichi. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Other Titles From Office Kitano
The 2000s Japan Landscape
Catalog density by release year in the 2000s. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Zatoichi premiered. 1020 total titles in this decade from Japan.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 51m runtime, production spent $23K per minute on screen and earned $308K per minute back.
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #1,720 of 4,579 Japan films indexed here (62nd percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is +0.3 points above the Japan average of 6.9/10.
Among Japan Adventure productions specifically: #631 of 1,216 (top 52%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | Japan |
|---|---|
| All Production Countries | France, Japan |
| Original Language | Japanese |
| Production Companies | Office Kitano, Saito Entertainment, Tokyo FM, Bandai Visual, Celluloid Dreams |
| Runtime | 1h 51m |
| Release Date | September 6, 2003 |
| IMDb | tt0363226 |