Zatoichi the Outlaw

Zatoichi is a blind masseur who carries his sword where nobody can see it. He arrives in a town. The peasants there are caught between two gambling houses: one holds those who cannot pay their debts, the other pays the debts off, frees them and comes out looking like the good man. Zatoichi takes the second one's side. Then he works out that the rescuer did it to get the peasants into his own hand. This time he has to answer himself for whom he killed and for what that death did to the village. Satsuo Yamamoto directs the Japanese film; ninety-six minutes, with Shintarō Katsu as Zatoichi as always. It is the sixteenth in the series and the first production of the company Katsu set up himself. Yamamoto was a director of the left, and is less interested in the swordfights than in what the peasants' relation to the land actually is.