if this have be do earlier in the zatoichi series it could have be one of the best . it be good enough and a most of them be and but the plot and the character seem too complicate for the series at this point . the situation be unusually intriguing represent the farmer in the province have two champion and a benevolent bos ( for once ) and a philosopher samurai who start a sort of grange while both run afoul of the usual local gangster and who want the crop to fail because it increase their gambling revenue and their chance to snap up some land while their chief or powerful ally be a seeming puritan who be death on drinking and gambling but secretly indulge his own perverse appetite . ( he also resemble dracula and a the villain in the late zatoichi movie tend increasingly to do . ) these character have enough meaning so that they deserve to be set against zatoichi a he be draw originally and but by now he have lose many of his nuance and and the change in some of the character and such a the good bos and the angry sister of a man zatoichi have kill and need more time then the movie have to give and so that the story seem choppy and a if some scene be miss . other than that and the movie show the virtue of most of the others in the series represent good acting and sometimes lyrical photography and the creation of a vivid and believable and and uniquely recognizable landscape ( the absence of which be obvious in the occasional episode where the director just miss it ) and and a technical quality that of it nature disguise itself represent the imaginatively varied use of limited set so their limitation seem not to exist . and of course there be the keynote actor and whose presence and as much a his performance and make it all work . this must be one of the best sustained series in movie history .