MIMURA is an employed SAMURAI by local load at middle elevation with excellent sword fighting skill.
One of his daily mission was "毒味役
OKU-MI-YAKU;poison checker" as which he eats the meal for the load before the lord eats to prevent murder by poison.
One day, MIMURA got into coma after checking. After awakened from coma, he found he had got blind.
Thinking MIMURA might lose his job, his wife KAYO asked higher position SAMURAI SHIMADA to support MIMURA. SHIMADA promised to do his best to keep MIMURA's job and raped KAYO for it reward. SHIMADA also threat KAYO to tell MIMURA the secret and force KAYO to meet repeatedly.
MIMURA's job position (and salary) was kept.
For some reason, MIMURA found KAYO meets SHIMADA repeatedly, inquired her and know her behavior. Though MIMURA knows the reason, he divorced KAYO immediately.
After a while, MIMURA knows his salary was kept by the favor of the load himself (as the lord thnks for MIMURA's checking) and SHIMADA had dne nothing for MIMURA.
MIMURA started training of sword fighting and MIMURA secretly asked SHIMADA for duel and ............
I love this movie because of the touching last sequence.
Remember the name "FUJISAWA, SHUHEI" for the original story of this movie. FUJISAWA wrote many nice SAMURAI stories.