Zatoichi's Conspiracy

Zatoichi returns after many years to the village where he was born. Omiyo greets him; as children the two were nursed by the same woman. His boyhood friend Shinbei is in the village too, but he is a rich man now and behaves as though he does not know Zatoichi. Shinbei is offering to clear the villagers' debts; on the face of it he is doing them a kindness, and in fact he is trying to take over the local stone quarry. Zatoichi learns what is really going on. This film is the last of the original Zatoichi series; the run that began in 1962 closed here, with the twenty-fifth film. Shintaro Katsu played the character himself from first to last. Kimiyoshi Yasuda directed. The mould is the same again: the blind swordsman arrives somewhere, finds a local injustice, and everyone assumes nobody will take it on. The difference is that the man opposite him this time is not a stranger but an old friend. Takashi Shimura is in the cast. Eighty-eight minutes.