Jollywood.

While running errands yesterday I popped down to the local video rental store to see if there were any "previously viewed" dvds for sale. They usually have some pretty good deals, and this time was no exception. "BUY TWO, GET TWO FREE", read the sign, so I started my search. In the end I picked up Spiderman2, Fast Food (a snowboarding video), Thunderstruck (an Australian film somewhat about AC/DC), and Zatoichi (a Japanese film about a blind swordsman).

Last night I watched Zatoichi, and really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I'd never really seen anything like it before. Why, you ask? Well, it was good. Don't get me wrong. Lots of great swordplay and action, as well as some funny bits. But the thing that got me was the dancing. I mean, it was wierd. Interspersed with all the action scenes and regular acting was dancing, where the extras would be doing "Stomp" routines to the movie sountrack. Then, the last scene in the movie had the entire cast (I'm pretty sure I saw a crew member in there somewhere, too...) doing a Stomp/tap routine.

I know that Bollywood movies very often have dancing in their movies, and it's usually expected, but this is a Japanese samurai movie! I didn't know that samurai had such amazing tap dancing abilities! What is this, Jollywood?