If John Wayne were to face Clint Eastwood-western meets post-western in a High Noon standoff-we would have something like Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo. Toshiro Mifune had already ventured into the realm of the anti-hero in Yojimbo (1961), but as the sixties progressed, the alienation of the traditional samurai hero once typified by Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai was complete. In this 1970 film (itself the stuff of legend, having been unavailable in this country for ten years following its release), the world's two most famous ronin meet in a small village where Zatoichi, typically, has come seeking peace and quiet, and Yojimbo, bodyguard to a corrupt boss, wends his sardonic way in a nest of spies and counterspies. Shot-in lovely pastels shifting to brilliance in the action scenes-by the dean of Japanese cinematography, Kazuo Miyagawa, and directed by Kihachi Okamoto (Sword of Doom, Samurai Assassin), this is both an exciting homage to cinematic swordsmanship, and a self-conscious entry into the anti-samurai genre.