Zatoichi on the Road

is a 1963 Japanese Chambara film directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda starring Shintaro Katsu as the blind masseur Zatoichi, originally released by the Daiei Motion Picture Company (now known as Kadokawa Pictures). Zatoichi: On the Road is the fifth episode in the 26 part film series devoted to the character of Zatoichi. Plot Ichi is being taken to Doyama, all expenses paid by an employee of Doyama crime boss Hikozo, on the promise of just meeting with Hikozo, no obligation to do anything. On the way his guide is killed by Hikozo's rivals who overheard Ichi and his guide at a tea house. Ichi kills them including the husband of Hisa, a woman who watches the short fight. She tells him this when he asks and they part coolly. At night he encounters a group of samurai looking for a girl. They leave and Ichi discovers the man they have just mortally wounded. He asks Ichi to protect a girl named Mitsu, the girl for whom the others are looking, and escort her to Edo (the capital, nowadays called Tokyo) where her family can protect her. He finds the exceptionally well-dressed girl hiding in a nearby shed. Ichi kills two men who come into the shed looking but another man escapes. Sometime during their travel Mitsu reveals that she is being hunted because she stabbed the local lord in the face with her hairpin when he tried to rape her. They reach an inn where Hisa is also staying with Jingoro, the man who hired Hisa's husband. Confessing to be low on cash, Ichi asks the proprietress if she can ask if anyone wishes for a massage so he can earn money to pay for the accommodation. Jingoro accepts so he can find out about Ichi. Ichi orders Mitsu not to leave their room. While giving the massage Hisa, whose presence Ichi detected, leaves the room. When asked if he is Zatoichi, Ichi denies this and says Zatoichi is a fool for having learned the sword as now people always want to kill him. Ichi senses the man going for his sword, he grabs it, wraps the sageo (cord around the sheath) around the handle so it can't be used and throws it across the room.and then gives a very hard massage for which he charges a huge amount. Meanwhile, Hisa has talked to Mitsu and convinced her of Ichi's ill intent. Hisa leaves with Mitsu.