ZATOICHI #18
Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda • 1968 • Japan
The wandering swordsman finds himself in a small village that serves as hideout for a band of fugitives who control the town officials and enforce brutal slave labor in the local silk mill. This lean and mean entry is packed with coldhearted villainy and rough justice, but it finds its heart in the great Takashi Shimura (IKIRU), who plays a kindly country doctor caught up in a violent world.
Up Next in Samurai
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Zatoichi’s Vengeance
ZATOICHI #13
Directed by Tokuzo Tanaka • 1966 • JapanZatoichi encounters a dying man, who asks the itinerant masseur to deliver a bag of money to his young son; he agrees to fulfill the request, finding the boy in a village terrorized by criminals. This is the first entry to scrutinize the swor...
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Zatoichi’s Pilgrimage
ZATOICHI #14
Directed by Kazuo Ikehiro • 1966 • JapanTroubled by his violent past, Zatoichi begins a journey to a series of shrines for a dose of cleansing spirituality. But as always, trouble isn’t far behind, and the blind swordsman soon finds himself defending a widow from the self-interest ...
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Yotsuya Kaidan, Part Two
Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita • 1949 • Japan
Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely devoted to her husband. She, in turn, is the object of a deadly, obsessive love of a criminal, Kohei, ...
