Older, wiser but still a wandering loner, the blind, peace-loving masseur Ichi seeks a peaceful life in a rural village. When he's caught in the middle of a power struggle between two rival Yakuza clans, his reputation as a deadly defender of the innocent is put to the ultimate test in a series of sword-slashing showdowns.
Zatoichi is a fictional character created by Japanese novelist Kan Shimozawa. He is an itinerant blind masseur and swordsman of Japan's late Edo period. He first appeared in the 1948 essay Zatoichi Monogatari (座頭市物語), part of Shimozawa's Futokoro Techō series that was serialized in the magazine Shōsetsu to Yomimono.
