The blind massage Zatoichi is hired by yakuza gang-leader Sukegoro (Eijiro Yanagi) as he thinks that war is inevitable with the rival yakuza Shigezo (Ryuzo Shimada). Zatoichi has a distinguished reputation as a swordsman and Sukegoro thinks he is money well spent. Shigezo responds by hiring a ronin of similar repute, Miki Hirate (Shigeru Amachi). Ichi is a meek and humble man who is commonly underestimated by most men, and looked upon suspiciously. His being a masseur, which was a position of low regard in feudal Japan, merely increases the hostility that is shown towards him. They even try to take advantage of his blindness in a gambling den, but from early on it is clear that Zatoichi draws strength from his disability.
One year after the first film, Zatōichi travels back to the town near the Joshoji Temple, to pay respects at the grave of Hirate, the samurai he killed. Three brigands attack Zatōichi while he dries his clothes, and are despatched by a one-armed swordsman. Later that day, Zatōichi is hired to massage a powerful lord who, unbeknownst to all but the lord's highest retainers, is insane. Zatōichi observes the nobleman's unstable mental condition, and the retainers decide to kill him. Zatōichi defeats the first three attackers, and retires to a restaurant. The attack having failed, the lord's men hire local yakuza (gangsters) to finish the job. Learning of this, Zatoichi remarks to himself that he would have kept quiet if they had just asked him to do so.
Ichi travels to his old village four years after he stopped training. On the way he meets his childhood friend Tamekichi. Tamekichi, his wife and child have become poor, and must make a living with music. While at an inn, a group of travelers are robbed by four thieves but Ichi does not stop them.
Ichi (which is the main character's name, Zato being the lowest rank in the Todoza) is attacked by a young yakuza man he has never met. The man is despatched and tells Ichi that he did it to get ten ryo reward for his mother. Ichi travels to the mother's town and enters a local sumo match and defeats several sighted opponents. While Maki, the young man's mother, accepts Ichi as honorable for confessing to the death, the opponents, part of a local Yakuza gang, seek to reclaim their honor by claiming Ichi's life.
Ichi is being taken to Doyoma, all expenses paid by an employee of Doyoma crime boss Hikozo, on the promise of just meeting with Hikozo, no obligation to do anything. On the way his guide is killed by Hikozo's rivals who overheard Ichi and his guide at a tea house. Ichi kills them including the husband of Hisa, a woman who watches the short fight. She tells him this when he asks and they part coolly.
Ichi travels to the village of Itakura to pay respects at the grave of a man he killed two years earlier. At the grave he reminisces on a fight between the two yakuza gangs (Iioka and Sasagawa from an earlier film) one man ran away and, though Ichi was not taking part in the fight, attacked Ichi. The dead man's sister, Chiyo, overhears Ichi say this to himself.
A lone yakuza musketeer chases after Ichi alongside a canal and shoots him in retaliation for Ichi cutting the yakuza boss and to earn the prestige of his more experienced fellows. His fellow yakuza arrive and he claims to have killed Ichi but without a corpse they don't believe him. Ichi is rescued from the water and a travelling stranger pays a local townswoman to nurse Zatoichi back to health. When well again Ichi travels to the stranger's home town to express his gratitude. The yakuza learn of Ichi's survival and his destination. They go after him and leave the failed shooter behind. He goes alone to make up for his lost face.
A group of assassins stop a blind men pilgrimage making their way down the road. The assassins ask for Ichi, but they all claim variations of that name. They line them up against a building to look at their faces, but do not find Ichi and leave. One of the blind men brings Ichi out from his hiding place in the building, and they laugh at playing a prank on sighted men. Ichi goes on his way.
On his way to a village to celebrate the Japanese New Year, Zatoichi is asked by a man to deliver a message to a woman. Upon delivery, he rooms with a young women who is searching for her missing father.
Zatoichi's travels have finally brought him back to the village where he was trained in the arts of the masseur, nearly ten years ago by his old sensei, Master Hikonoichi. His proximity to his former teacher compels him to pay a visit, only to learn that Hikonoichi was recently killed while traveling, and his daughter Sayo has been Sexual slavery to repay the money lent to her father by local business man Tatsugoro. Zatoichi sets out to free Sayo, only to discover that the entire village is suffering -- victims of a scheme that has either forced their daughters into prostitution, or into doing the bidding of Tatsugoro, who is working for the corrupt Intendant, Isoda. Sayo provides him with the toggle of a medicine pouch, recovered from her father's hand.
Zatoichi (Katsu) is given 50 lashes for illegal gambling in Shimokura. While in jail, his cellmate Shimazo (Mizuhara) claims to have been jailed on false charges of Burglary, arson, and murder, pleading with Ichi to contact one of his influential associates who can vouch for his innocence and to inform his wife and daughter of his situation.
On a boat trip to Honshu island, Zatoichi (Katsu) makes the acquaintance of Jumonji (Narita), an expert shogi (Japanese chess) player and swordsman. Once on Honshu, a group of men that had tried to cheat Zatoichi at dice try to take revenge upon him- only for Ichi to turn the tables on them in the tussle. However, Miki, the niece of a woman named Otane, is injured in the confusion, compelling Ichi to go to great lengths to procure the medicine needed to cure her injury. When she recovers, the child sincerely thanks him, leaving him overwrought with emotion.
Traveling on the road, Zatoichi (Katsu) encounters a dying man who gives him a bag full of money and the name "Taichi". Traveling on, he makes the acquaintance of a blind biwa-playing priest. The two travel to a town that is having their annual Taiko festival. The town is under the domination of a Yakuza boss who extorts from the people.
Seeking to wikt:atonement for his violent past, Zatoichi (Katsu) embarks on a pilgrimage to visit the Shikoku Pilgrimage on Shikoku. On the road, a man (Igawa) attacks Zatoichi but is killed by him. Zatoichi follows the man's horse back to his home.
While travelling Zatoichi comes across a dying gangster boss called Shotaro. In a nearby town that has been overrun by gang belonging
In a rural village, Zatoichi (Katsu) encounters Shushi Ohara (Suzuki; modeled after 18th-century agriculturalist Yagaku Ohara) a sword-less rōnin who defends himself against multiple attackers without killing them. Ohara leads a peasant movement advocating the Abstinence from gambling, Alcoholic beverage#Alcohol consumption, and whoring.
Zatoichi (Katsu) checks into an inn where he shares a room with an ill woman and her young son named Ryota. Before the woman dies, she requests that Zatoichi take her son to his father, an artist living in the nearby town of Maebara. As they travel together, they hitch a ride with a traveling Performance art troupe.
Zatoichi comes to a village which is the local hub of family farms in a silk growing region. The most prominent villager is Matsugoro who apparently will stop at nothing to bring all under his control. The small village does have a kind doctor, Dr. Junan, who lives with his daughter Oshizu.
During his wanderings, Zatoichi comes across with a group of people connected with an infamous Yakuza boss, known as "Dark Lord" Yamikubo. Yamikubo is Blindness like Ichi, but he is indeed evil, and rules with an iron fist a great region of lands and towns who pay tribute to him. After Zatoichi tries to help a woman who has been bought at a "mistress auction" organized by one of Yamikubo's henchmen, the Dark Lord uses the beautiful Okiyo, his protégé, as a spy who must seduce and take Ichi his ''shikomi-zue'' (cane sword) away. But shortly after meeting him, Okiyo falls in love with Ichi and refuses to carry out her mission. Yamikubo then devises another way of drawing the blind swordsman close and kill him during the famous "Fire Festival", which Zatoichi decides to attend despite the danger involved.
