As Part I opens, Jubei (Denjiro Okochi), the best of sea skippers, is unable to overcome the stormy seas of Luzon. All hands on board the Kannonmaru were lost except for Shinkei, who alone made his way to land & eventually home to inform his grandson Jiromaru (Kinnosuke Nakamura) that his father Jubei met with disaster. Young Jiromaru tells his grandfather that he doesn't want to be a skipper like his father, but wants to go to Kyoto and become a samurai…
In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare.
In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.
The fate of Tokugawa’s world hangs in the balance as Yagyu Jubei is sent on a mission to discover what happened to 10 of the shogun’s spies that never returned.
While her son, Kichi, is away at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law survive by killing samurai who stray into their swamp, then selling whatever valuables they find.
Having put down his sword and given up the will to fight, the masterless samurai Iemon lives in solitude while being haunted by his violent enigmatic past.
The adventures of a blind, gambling masseur and master swordsman. Zatoichi targets a yakuza-controlled village, because war with a neighbouring town's smaller gang is brewing.
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life.
An ailing barrister is thrust back into the courtroom in what becomes one of the most unusual and eventful murder cases of the lawyer's career when he finds himself defending a man being tried for the murder of a socialite.
