You just can’t do any better than Zatoichi. Blind masseur, sword hidden in his walking stick. I love how he chops the tops off of candles and catches them with the end of his sword in the gambling parlors to sorta even it up with his adversaries. And the way he wiggles his ears when listening to attackers, or how he always recognizes somebody’s voice or scent. What a great bunch of work.
Darkness is his ally.
The last two Zatoichi TV episodes are really weird. Sorta like Zatoichi on acid or something. Some noblewoman seduces him and then the bad guys show up and he slays them. Then he has a dream where he is sighted and goes all freaky, and gets his arms and legs chopped off by another gang of bad guys. Then he wakes up and jumps rope to celebrate still having limbs. Crazy stuff, even for Zatoichi.
Zatoichi is awesome. Years ago I bought a hand forged Zatoichi sword; one that you can’t buy anymore. The Zatoichi swords they sell now are cheap, and don’t even fit together well. I know: I bought another one, but it was trash. The good Zatoichi sword is like a red teak wood stick, that flies apart smoothly to reveal a flexible tempered steel sword with a wavy line near the blade, a sword that’s completely straight and not curved a bit. I once tried it on a small pine tree. It went through the two inch tree trunk like air. No resistance whatever. Whoa!