Kusuo Abe

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.

A sadistic Daimyo (feudal lord) rapes a woman and murders both her and her husband, but even when one of his own vassals commits suicide to bring attention to the crime, the matter is quickly hushed up. Not only will there be no punishment, but because the Daimyo is the Shogun's younger brother, he will soon be appointed to a high political position from which he could wreak even more havoc. Convinced that the fate of the Shogunate hangs in the balance, a plot is hatched to assassinate the Daimyo. The two most brilliant strategic minds of their generation find themselves pitted against each other; one is tasked to defend a man he despises, and has a small army at his disposal. The other is given a suicide mission, and has 12 brave men. They are the 13 Assassins.

In this first episode, we are introduced to Takezo, what Musashi used to be before he became the man of legend. His beginning are not exactly auspicious. He sides with the Toyotomi at Sekigahara, and as a result finds himself on the losing side of the historic battle. He and his friend Matahachi manage to escape the slaughter although the latter is wounded in his leg. They stumble across the young Akemi who makes her living with her mother Oko by robbing corpses of their armor and anything else they can sell. Oko takes it into her head to seduce Matahachi, which she does first by skillfully sucking the gangrene from his blood, and then just by sucking.

After a salary-man's fiancée attempts suicide, he recounts his gruesome family history which saw generations of his ancestors suffer and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their cruel lords.

The final film in the 1953 trilogy based on the long novel series The Great Bodhisattva Pass.

Based on a novel by Kôen Hasegawa

Tetsunosuke, an eccentric doctor and an owner of a fencing school, takes aim against corrupt authorities.