Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo

Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (座頭市と用心棒) is a 1970 Japanese drama film directed by Kihachi Okamoto. It is the twentieth of a series of films featuring the blind swordsman Zatoichi. The main character is based on a fictional character, a blind masseur and swordmaster. He was created by novelist Kan Shimozawa and set during the late Edo period (1830s and 1840s).

In this film, the actor Toshiro Mifune plays a similar character to Sanjuro, the ronin (masterless samurai) in Akira Kurosawa's famous film Yojimbo (1961). Although Mifune is clearly not playing the same man (his name here is Daisaku Sasa, and his personality and background are different in many key respects), the film's title and some of its content play on the idea of the two iconic jidaigeki characters confronting each other. (Incident at Blood Pass, made in the same year, also stars Mifune in a role similar to that of Yojimbo.)

Cast
Shintaro Katsu − Zatoichi Toshiro Mifune - Yojimbo/Sasa Ayako Wakao − Umeno Osamu Takizawa − Yasuke Eboshiya Masakane Yonekura − Boss Masagoro Shin Kishida − Kuzuryu Kanjūrō Arashi - Hyoroku

Plot
In the middle of a rainstorm, Zatoichi witnesses (more likely, overhears) a man being killed by a group and then dragged off into the brush. Tired of wandering, he decides to visit his hometown not noticing until later that the townspeople are living in fear of a local yakuza gang. At a teahouse, he meets Umeno, a former love interest.