Another outing for Kan Shimozawa’s hero, though for this adventure the blind swordsman has been reimagined as a girl. Otherwise, this is a pretty standard treatment as far as plot goes. It’s rather light on fighting, concentrating instead on a lavishly realised evocation of Edo period Japan, and Ichi’s (Haruka Ayase) beautiful face – which is, after all, the film’s USP. This Ichi is not only blind, but a reluctant talker whose smooth features are rarely troubled by the express­ion of any kind of emotion: whether this signifes Zen-like calm or introvers­ion isn’t clear, but it does have the odd effect of making her look rather like a young Kelly Macdonald. Ichi is a competent if forgett­able period piece and benefits from being more tightly focused than the slew of bombastic post-Crouching Tiger epics.