Directed by Masahiro Shinoda • 1965 • Japan
Starring Koji Takahashi, Eiji Okada, Tetsuro Tanba

Years of warfare end in a Japan unified under the Tokugawa shogunate, and samurai spy Sasuke Sarutobi, tired of conflict, longs for peace. When a high-ranking spy named Tatewaki Koriyama defects from t...

Directed by Kihachi Okamoto • 1968 • Japan
Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Etsushi Takahashi, Yuriko Hoshi

In this pitch-black action comedy by Kihachi Okamoto, a pair of down-on-their-luck swordsmen arrive in a dusty, windblown town, where they become involved in a local clan dispute. One, previously...

ZATOICHI #9
Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda • 1964 • Japan

The blind swordsman wanders into a town to celebrate the New Year. There, he befriends a young woman whose father has gone missing; as he tries to help her find him, he becomes entangled in a web of corruption and a series of tragic twists ...

ZATOICHI #7
Directed by Kazuo Ikehiro • 1964 • Japan

The blind swordsman is shot and nursed back to health by kind strangers. He soon discovers that his saviors are caught between sparring crime lords; bound by honor, Zatoichi stays to ensure their safety. Along the way, we learn more about the ...

Directed by Hideo Gosha • 1978 • Japan

Tatsuya Nakadai stars as a vengeful ex-samurai commanding a gang of outlaws in an attack on the castle of his former master.

Directed by Masahiro Shinoda • 1964 • Japan

Masahiro Shinoda's Assassin (aka Ansatsu) was the director's first period film - but it is hardly set in the "safety" of a past era, as its story, of a masterless samurai (Tetsuro Tamba) making his way amid the chaotic aftermath of Commodore Perry's fo...

Directed by Hideo Gosha • 1964 • Japan
Starring Tetsuro Tamba, Isamu Nagato, Mikijiro Hira

This first feature by the legendary Hideo Gosha is among the most beloved chanbara (sword-fighting) films. An origin-story offshoot of a Japanese television phenomenon of the same name, THREE OUTLAW SAMURA...

Directed by Toshiya Fujita • 1974 • Japan
Starring Meiko Kaji, Juzo Itami, Kazuko Yoshiyuki

Meiko Kaji returns in Toshiya Fujita’s invigorating sequel to his own cult hit LADY SNOWBLOOD. Our furious heroine is captured by the authorities and sentenced to death for the various killings she has co...

ZATOICHI #11
Directed by Kazuo Mori • 1965 • Japan

An elderly prisoner accused of murder begs Zatoichi to find evidence of his innocence. The blind swordsman, for the first time, chooses not to help, but fate has other plans for him. Director Issei Mori, who played a significant role in getting ...

ZATOICHI #8
Directed by Kenji Misumi • 1964 • Japan

While on the road, Zatoichi befriends a young mother right before she is savagely murdered. Promising her that he will hand over her baby to its father, the blind masseur embarks on an adventure both sentimental and beset by perilous action. Th...

ZATOICHI #12
Directed by Kenji Misumi • 1965 • Japan

Kenji Misumi, who directed the first installment of the ZATOICHI series, returns with this tale in which the blind swordsman once again finds himself the protector of a child: a little girl pursued by both devious family members and bloodthirs...

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, ...

ZATOICHI #24
Directed by Shintaro Katsu • 1972 • Japan

Star Shintaro Katsu sits in the director’s chair for this psychedelic and unremittingly bleak entry in the Zatoichi series, which is unlike any other in its grind-house grimness. A tale of innocence corrupted by sadistic, sleazy criminality,...

ZATOICHI #21
Directed by Kenji Misumi • 1970 • Japan

Cowritten by star Shintaro Katsu, this adventure pits Zatoichi against one of his most diabolical foes: a blind yakuza boss whose reign of terror and exploitation has made him nearly mythic. Guest starring the legendary Tatsuya Nakadai as a ro...

ZATOICHI #10
Directed by Akira Inoue • 1965 • Japan

Nearing the village of his sensei, Zatoichi decides to pay the teacher a visit, only to learn that he has been murdered and his daughter forced into prostitution. Ichi’s investigation into these injustices uncovers a corrupt alliance between go...

ZATOICHI #15
Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda • 1967 • Japan

Wearying of his wandering lifestyle, Zatoichi yearns to settle down; unfortunately, when he does so it’s in a town overrun by yakuza. He has an eye-opening encounter with the town’s blacksmith, who reveals himself to be the apprentice of t...

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 coldheart...

ZATOICHI #13
Directed by Tokuzo Tanaka • 1966 • Japan

Zatoichi 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...

ZATOICHI #14
Directed by Kazuo Ikehiro • 1966 • Japan

Troubled 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 ...

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, ...

Directed by Nobuo Nakagawa • 1959 • Japan

Also known as THE GHOST OF YOTSUYA, this Nobuo Nakagawa film follows a samurai who betrays his wife, only to find her ghost has returned to reap her vengeance upon him.

ZATOICHI #23
Directed by Kazuo Mori • 1972 • Japan

Zatoichi comes across a pregnant woman dying from sword wounds and helps deliver her baby. Her final request to him: take the boy to see his father. From here, the film evolves into one of the wilder rides in the ZATOICHI series, including such ...

Directed by Kazuo Kuroki • 1990 • Japan

A group of masterless samurai living in Edo's red light district must fend off a militia bent on wiping out local prostitutes. Directed by Kazuo Kuroki.

ZATOICHI #16
Directed by Satsuo Yamamoto • 1967 • Japan

Zatoichi arrives in a town where a gambling house is kidnapping its poor, debt-ridden patrons. A rival establishment moves to pay those debts and free the peasants, but this second house’s seemingly altruistic boss is actually laying the gr...