The movie follows Toku a blind masseur and a woman from Tokyo that he meets.

E Map Massages from trained blind masseurs.

After the master swordsman has defeated the attackers, Zatōichi must face Yoshirō, a much-feared one-armed swordsman with whom the blind masseur has an unexpected connection.

In contrast, the coin-throwing Heiji of Zenigata Heiji is a commoner, working for the police, while Ichi (the title character of Zatoichi), a blind masseur, is an outcast, as were many disabled people in that era.

One became a shipping clerk, another the operator of a dumpling stand and the third a blind masseur.

He played the role of blind masseur Zatoichi in a series of films in 25 movies between 1962 and 1973, starred and directed a 26th in 1989 and played the role in four seasons of a spin-off television series.

Today he ekes out a living as a masseur in a clinic of blind masseurs.

The character, a blind masseur and swordmaster, was created by novelist Kan Shimozawa.

A young woman, a student from Oklahoma, visits a blind masseur regularly in order to pry from him information about his boyhood during the Cultural Revolution.

"What appealed to me was that the real character, a blind masseur named Shirl Jennings of Atlanta, had this operation to regain his sight and then had a horrible problem in understanding what sight brings you," Mr. Winkler said.