Zatoichi's Pilgrimage

Zatoichi (Shintarō Katsu), the blind masseur, is walking a pilgrimage through 88 temples when he stumbles into a village held in fear by the yakuza boss Nanashino Gonbei (Masao Mishima). Kazuo Ikehiro sends him from one shrine to the next on foot, and the road keeps pulling him back into the trouble he came to pray away. Every blow he has to land delays the atonement he set out to make, and he carries it all in silence.