With 25 film sequels and upwards of 100 TV episodes, Shintaro Katsu is the legendary Zatoichi! He’s a low-ranking blind masseur who lives by the Yakuza code and answers his foes with a deadly cane sword. By far one of Japan’s most time-honored screen personas, Zatoichi is to this day the ultimate everyman anti-hero. Combining violent action with slapstick comedy, Zatoichi’s Cane Sword is a superb example of samurai filmmaking. The village of Tonda is ruled by violent and unscrupulous yakuza, and Zatoichi takes it upon himself to clean up the town. The film blends brilliant color photography with breathtaking action sequences while offering a look into Zatoichi’s past, as the blind swordsman learns the origin of his famous cane sword, and discovers it may soon fail in battle *The entire Zatoichi series includes 26 film episodes. Home Vision Entertainment will release Zatoichi episodes 17, 18 and 19 this August. In an effort to maintain the integrity of this collection DVDs from HVe are numbered in order of movie release. Episodes 14, 16 and 20-26 are not available from Home Vision Entertainment.