Tanuma Kandayuu is a high class samurai of the house of Nabeshima. He finds a lavish board of Go (a Chinese Board game) at Kinbei's store. He recommend Kinbei to offer it to his lord. Kinbei hesitates at first, since he knows the board has a mysterious legend surrounding it; it's believed that for every game played on the board, one death is required.
About 1786 the doings of a demented lord results in many masterless samurai, including Iyemon (Kei Sato) who is used to luxury and cannot adjust to the hand-to-mouth conditions & piecework of umbrella making.
Nishina Saburouta is powerful but corrupted priest. One night, an old samurai who couldn't bear him any more, attempts to kill him, but without success.
During a fever, Tateo, the male protagonist believes he is dying and has the hallucination that his beautiful wife, Reiko (Tamaki Katori), the daughter of a wealthy family, is having an affair w/ another man.
Follows the murder of a money-lending masseur by an impoverished samurai. The slain masseur's daughter will also fall victim to his curse, so that she can become empowered as an agent of her father's vengeance.
Popular movie trailers from 1949
These some of the most viewed trailers for movies released in 1949:
Young Viscount Tony Pym wangles National Service leave on the pretext of standing as a Tory candidate for a local seat held by his family for generations.
A study of an amoral and sleazy defense lawyer who suddenly tries to "go straight" when he finds out that his tart wife is cheating on him; as well as the similarities he has in life with one of his clients.
A bizarre mechanic tells a traveler the story of a bank employee, Peppino Biancaneve, who with the help of a disc is trying to put together the words he would like to use to ask for the hand of the daughter of the jeweler Carlo Casertoni, but while he mulls over the sentences he should pronounce to his future father-in-law he comes across a strange individual who could be a bringer of bad luck: a jettatore.
A group of Arizona ranchers, trying to learn the identities of the Salt River Gang and prevent any further rustling, marks the currency that rancher Frank Abbott turns over to the gang to get his cattle back.