(by gkbazalo on 23 August 2004)

Zatoichi's Conspiracy has our hero returning to his hometown and making the acquaintance of his "sister", a young orphan raised by the same old woman who raised Zatoichi. The bad guy is an official who also grew up in the same village and was a childhood friend of Zatoichi. He appears to be befriending the village by paying off their tax debt, but lays claim to the village quarry, which serves as the only source of income besides farming. A high point of this film is the appearance of Takashi Shimura, the hero of many Kurosawa films including Seven Samurai, as the guardian of Zatoichi's new-found sister. The ending is a little bit of a copout as Zatoichi struggles to decide whether he can bring himself to kill his old friend. A solid entertaining entry to the series.