Zatoichi, the blind swordsman, "sees" with his other senses: his hearing and sense of smell are those of an animal in the wilderness. This translates into a particularly sensuous cinema, in which we can feel the rustling of trees and the quiet of water, the movement of feet (friend or foe?) and the smell of danger. In place of eyeline matches are "earline" matches, beginning with a zoom to a close-up shot of Zatoichi's ear, which he uses like an antenna. The Return of Masseur Ichi finds the lowly masseur and sometime gambler on the road to the grave of a friend who died by his hand; murderer and mourner, this is the essense of Zatoichi. A perpetual scapegoat, he is the implement of the repressed violence of his times; he takes on stray ronin and feudal despots with equal aplomb, but it is a never ending cycle (thus the film ends in mid-swing of the sword). His ironic sense of his own vulnerability ("long time no see" he says to a yakuza boss) merges with the alienation he himself perpetuates: the memory of the woman who left him when he became blind haunts the climactic battle with the ronin Yoshiro (Kenzaburo Jo), a battle of emotions more than blades.