He cuts a lone, pathetic figure in his scruffy clothes and strawsandals, feeling his way along country roads with the help of a wooden cane. Butinside the cane is a sword, and inside the man an uncanny talent for survival. Inthe last decades of the Tokugawa period, blind masseurs were at the bottom of thecaste system, the frequent object of derision from peasant and samurai alike. Inthe second half of the twentieth century, however, Zatoichi, the blind masseur,is the most popular character in any Japanese action serial. Faced with thecontempt of men, Zatoichi answers with a dazzling, ruthless display ofswordsmanship. Surprised by the love of some shy young woman, he demurs but for amoment. Zatoichi monogatari with its gang bosses, straying samurai, anddowntrodden innocents, introduces the mood of corruption that drew the basicallypeaceloving Zatoichi into action in some thirty films. Shintaro Katsu portraysZatoichi with shaved head and hollow eyes, and all the pathos and the ironyembedded in his humble hero. The humility, like the cane, is a sheath for aprofound detachment.