The widescreen cinematography is spectacular with gorgeous visual compositions, in the third Zatoichi feature film, the first in color, New Tales of Zatoichi (Shin Zatoichi monogatari, 1963). This superb episode has also been known as Zatoichi Enters Again, The Blind Swordsman's Return & Masseur Ichi Enters Again.
Three vengeful yakuza recognize Ichi the blind masseur as the notorious swordsman with murderous iai quickdraw. They think that he's without his sword, but in fact he has a sword that slips into an umbrella handle instead of his usual canesword.
Apparently his fame with the canesword had become so widely known that he obtained the less easily recognized umbrella-sheath so that he might continue his occupations as gambling masseur without always being challenged to duels.
"Aren't you Ichi from Kasamon?" asks a fellow traveller, the singer Tane (Masayo Banri) previously encountered in the pilot episode. She will show up one more time in the fourth installment of the series, when she'll be killed as the best excuse for one of Ichi's bloodiest rampages.
Tane's a childhood friend, to whom Ichi will soon be confessing shame-facedly, "The grudges against me are piling up."
Ichi plays shamisan & sings at a wayside inn, trying to raise a few funds with which to gamble (simultaneously showcasing a couple more of Katsushin's many talents). But bandits break into the inn robbing these poor folks of their few coins.
 Ichi does nothing that night, for fear of the innocent being injured. But the next day he finds the local boss of bandits & strongarms the thieves into paying back two or three times what was stolen, which Ichi accepts graciously & divides among the robbed travelers.
He has returned to the place where he was raised, & visits his foster grandmother, who tells him he should visit the grave of his parents. He also encounters the very sword instructor Banno (Seizaburo Kawazu), a ronin who had trained him in iaido, the art of the fast-draw sword. He goes to stay in his sensei's dojo, which he left four years before.
Banno is not the man of integrity Ichi remembers. He has connections with the Tengu gang of samurai who've become bandits & kidnappers. Plus he's demanding his sister Yayoi (Mikiko Tsubouchi), much against her wishes, marry a well-off samurai she doesn't love.
 Yayoi falls for Ichi & begs to become his wife. Deeply moved, he is slow to agree, though eventually accepts her proposal, despite that he is worried Yayoi's brother will find Ichi unworthy of even a lowly ronin's sister. But Ichi swears to become honest man & live a clean life devoted to her.
No sooner than he makes his promises, a young yakuza named Yasuhika (Fujio Suga) demands a grudge match (for having killed his brother in the second feature film). Rather than bringing forth a defensive lightning draw of death as usual, Ichi throws down his sword & begs for his life.
The young gangster is hugely surprised, at first angry & dubious. He agrees not to duel Ichi if he will play a game with dice with him instead of duelling. If Ichi loses, his right arm will be cut off. Ichi in fact loses the toss of the die, but by then the angry yakuza has become genuinely moved by Yayoi & Ichi's sincerity, & so kicks the die pretending to have lost.
 Ichi's sensei Banno has a hissy-fit & kicks Ichi out of his house as "lower than a dog," unfit to marry into samurai lineage.
As point of fact wandering masseurs were officially outcasts & culturally speaking, an outcast marrying into the buke class would be like a worm marrying a falcon.
So Banno is not being unreasonable in his response. Yet Banno's true colors become increasingly obvious as he kills the young yakuza who had spared Ichi, though the man wasn't even armed.
Ichi's intent to give up the sword & live a clean life is defeated at every turn. The cruel Tengu gang will continue to run roughshod over the region if there is no champion among the people.
 Ichi knows that fighting a gang of samurai will be much, much tougher than his usual one-against-all battles with ill-trained yakuza.
But his trepidations are vanquished by the time he strides amidst them bigger than life, his reverse-hand style sneaking under each samurai's overhead cuts with horrific ease. The choreography is extraordinary.
The encounter must inevitably conclude with a one-on-one duel with his former sword instructor. "Sensei, forgive me," he asks most regretfully, then uses every bit of what he'd been taught by the very man he must slay.
But having killed Yayoi's brother & been a central part of a great deal of bloody mayhem -- even after his promise to give up his violent gambler's way of life -- he faces the fact that he's not a suitable husband for any woman.
 "It seems I am that kind of man," he tells her apologetically, & is off into the sunrise, eternally the tragic hero.
This is one of the finest episodes in the whole series. Character is as important as action in most episodes, but this one gets very deeply at the heart of Ichi's nature.
Though blind & poor, he's unquestionably a handsome strong man with sensitivity & decency in him, & no wonder that girls always fall for him. But this time the love angle has an edge of desparation on both Yayoi's & Ichi's part. They are looking for a happy ending where none can exist. It's a lesson Ichi will always keep in mind when dodging similar chances at illusory happiness as the long-running series progresses.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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