from the bits...thought this would interest some of you.

Now then, as many of you out there know, we're MAJOR fans of the Japanese Zatoichi film series, which depicts the adventures of a legendary blind swordsman played by the late Shintaro Katsu. All of the 26 films in the series are now available on DVD in the States (from Home Vision, AnimEigo and Media Blasters)... save one: Zatoichi's Pilgrimage, the missing 14th tale in the series. Exactly WHY this film is unavailable on DVD here, and who owns the release rights to the title, has been a mystery we've been investigating for close to three years now. But we've finally uncovered the answer to those questions... and they might surprise you.

As it turns out, Miramax purchased the U.S. rights to the film a number of years ago. Apparently, director Quentin Tarantino was interested in doing a remake of the film. Of course, not long after this, Japanese director Takeshi Kitano (also known as Beat Takeshi) created his own updated version of the series, Zatoichi, which was also released to theaters and DVD in the U.S. through Miramax. Because of this, the future of Tarantino's version is uncertain. Unfortunately, also uncertain as a result of all this has been the fate of a U.S. DVD release of the original Zatoichi's Pilgrimage. We would like to strongly urge Buena Vista and Miramax to release the film on DVD, and we encourage all of you who are fans of these films to let the studio know you want Pilgrimage on disc ASAP. Sadly, pretty much everything DVD related at Miramax is on hold at the moment due to the Disney-Miramax split. In the meantime, we've updated our Zatoichi series review page with this new information.

Disney

My understanding was that Miramax was going to try and dump out everything in their catalog so they don't need to worry about Disney in the future.

Really? An asian film controlled by Miramax that hasn't been able to see the light of day in this country? Where have I heard that before?

I fear Ichi has finally come across the "Evil Boss" he cannot defeat...

Legend of Zu, anyone? According to Yahoo, it's coming out August 19 of this year, only about four years too late.

i hope they do dump this soon....I'm just glad i will finally get to watch prozac nation

any updates on this one?

is it available in any other part of the world

Yep. It's availible in the UK on DVD.

Better hold off on that, a DVD with the title "Zatoichi's Pilgrimage" was released in the UK as you've stated but the actual episode on the disc is not "Zatoichi's Pilgrimage"; it is another (already released in the U.S.) episode in the series.

Doh! That's right, I forgot...

It's actually #23 "Zatoichi at Large".

Thanks for the info. It's amazing how many films Miramax bought and sat on. How a business could survive with such practices is beyond me.

I'm eagerly awaiting it's release now...as well as the rest of the TV series.

did this carried over to the Weinstein group? Any chance that it could appear in the Dragon Dynasty series?

No new word? I'm a bit disappointed that after all this time Zatoichi's Pilgrimage is still not out or coming out.

And what happened to more TV series? I loved the first season, and even it if was pricey for TV it was worth it to me.

the tv series has several releases out now

It's been a while but I last saw it on the (HD) Kung Fu Channel.

Yep, I believe the entire first season has been released by Media Blasters (in six volumes). At this rate, the second season could be completely out by the end of next year. Let's hope that Media Blasters just doesn't drop this project. I hope it's making money for them.

People need to understand that Miramax post-Weinstein has been dividing their work between cleaning up the mess that Weinstein left behind and moving forward with the company.

All these films taht were being sat on were all due to Harvey Weinstein's management. Lots of films went with him and some films stayed behind.

Legend of Zu for example was pushed behind by Weinstein for years and then after he got the boot was when Miramax post-Weinstein finally put it out.

So people need t know where to direct their finger pointing at because the real cause of the mess is not at the company anymore.

I ordered Zatoichi's Pilgrimage - Episode 14 (Shintaro Kat) from http://www.samuraimoviedvd for $10.95. Is this for real?

Any word on Zatoichi's Pilgrimage getting a DVD treatment with English subs any time soon?

So update us, how was the disc?