Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold

is a 1964 Japanese Chambara film directed by Kazuo Ikehiro starring Shintaro Katsu as the blind masseur Zatoichi, originally released by the Daiei Motion Picture Company (later acquired by Kadokawa Pictures). It also stars Tomisaburo Wakayama who would later play the lead in the Lone Wolf and Cub series. Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold is the sixth episode in the 26-part film series devoted to the character of Zatoichi, following Zatoichi on the Road and preceding Zatoichi's Flashing Sword. Plot Ichi travels to the village of Itakura to pay respects at the grave of a man he killed two years earlier. At the grave he reminisces on a fight between the two yakuza gangs (Iioka and Sasagawa from an earlier film) one man ran away and, though Ichi was not taking part in the fight, attacked Ichi. The dead man's sister, Chiyo, overhears Ichi say this to himself. Ichi is invited to take part in a village celebration: after three years of drought and near famine they and seventeen other villages in Usui county have raised 1,000 Ryo with which to pay taxes to the local intendant. Ichi gladly joins in while the locals sing of their hero Chuji- who lives in the hills with a troupe, hiding from the constabulary while protecting the villagers. As they transport the gold to the local intendant (Gundayu) they are ambushed by three samurai (led by Jushiro, who wields a whip) and then by a larger band. Several of the villagers are slain and the rest flee. When the robbers chase the chest of gold to the base of the hill, they find Ichi sitting atop it smoking his pipe. He kills several men when attacked and the rest flee. In the village the local men accost Ichi, blaming him for its theft, before he promises to find the gold. The conversation is overheard by a well dressed woman called Ogin. Taking the backroads to avoid government checkpoints he encounters her again. When she questions his motive for being on the backroad he replies that he could not tell, as he is blind and then asks her why she is on the same road.