1962 Japanese movie

In the early Edo period, among the pirate ships that roamed the seas near Ryukyu and Korea, there was a ship called the Sueyoshi, led by a man known as Misaki Shogoro, who was infamous for his devilish cruelty. Shogoro had a rule: he would kill all the men from the ships he raided, while the women would be distributed among the crew for their pleasure. However, he himself never touched any woman. Aboard the ship was a young girl named Kogane, who had been raised on the ship since she was a child and dressed as a boy. Unbeknownst to others, she had grown to secretly adore Shogoro.

Tsunamune Date, the young lord of Sendai Domain, was ordered by the shogunate to stand down after being spotted in a brothel. Shortly after, four advisors from his entourage were assassinated, calling into question the possessions of the Date family.

During the reign of Hidetada, the second shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty, the advisor Okubo Hikozaemon (Ganjiro Nakamura) entrusts the young Takechiyo (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) to the fishmonger Isshin Tasuke (Kazuo Hasegawa) to help him understand the world. Tasuke, who does not know that Takechiyo is the shogun's heir, trains him harshly. Tasuke's wife Naka (Michiko Ai) is concerned about his harsh teaching style, but Takechiyo gains strength day by day and adapts to his new life. Soon, Takechiyo begins secretly talking about love with a city girl named Otoyo (Hitomi Nozoe), but...

The film won 1959 Blue Ribbon Awards for best actor Raizo Ichikawa and for best cinematography Kazuo Miyagawa. The film also won 1959 Kinema Junpo Award for best actor Raizo Ichikawa.

The Dai-bosatsu toge trilogy is based on Kaizan Nakazato's unfinished long series of novels (41 books, written from 1913 to 1941). Set in the last period of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Daibosatsu Toge tells the story of Ryunosuke Tsukue, a nihilistic swordmaster who doesn't hesitate to kill anyone, bad or good.

Returning to the village where a year before he had killed Hirate, a much-admired opponent, Zatoichi encounters another swordsman and former rival in love.

[Period covered: 1582-1594]. As the film opens, the warlod Nobunaga Oda rides to Iga Ayanokuni shrine. He is asked if he thinks he has destroyed all the ninja who opposed him and answers that he suspects that there may be more. A servant brings water and tests it first. The paige dies and we hear gunshots as two ninja flee the scene. His suspicions confirmed, Nobunaga oversees the execution of captured ninja and decides that, in the future, he needs a much crueler method of execution. The daimyo Hideyoshi comes to visit.

The Fencing Master tells the story of a man trying to survive as the only world he knows is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Danpei Ichikawa lives for swordfighting – he was once a renowned kabuki swordfight choreographer, and as the Chairman of the New National Theatre Company, he wants nothing more than to choreograph the swordfights for the modern plays put on by the company.