I grew up on cowboy and samurai films, and have featured both in this blog. USA Western and Japanese Samurai Movies . The Age of the Samurai. Japanese Samurai Films :  I dallied on a fictional samurai, Zatoichi. Can catch a fly with chopsticks.    So did Miyamoto Musashi . Set in the late Edo period, 1830's and 1840's. Shintaro Katsu, actor, made 26 Zatoichi films from 1962 to 1989. Amazingly enough, here is the   entire (2 hours) #26 from 1989 ! There was also a television series from 1974-9 with 100 episodes. I was recently watching TCM, which played the very first Zatoichi film,  The Tale of Zatoichi , which was made in 1962.  Thought it was entertaining, and was curious, so went to  Rotten Tomatoes  and was astounded to see it rated at 100/87.   So I just had to learn more about this series and found the following. Shintaro Katsu originated the role and played in all 26 of them. #25 was the 1973  Zatoichi's Conspiracy .   Then in 1989, after 16 years,  Zatoichi:  Darkne