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The Hidden Blade (Kakushi-ken: Oni No Tsume) (18)

  • Consumer Advice: Contains moderate bloody violence
  • Run time: 2 hours 12 mins
  • Language: Japanese
  • Genre: Action / Adventure
  • Release date: 2nd December 2005

Plot Synopsis

In the mid-19th century, during the final days of the Shoguns and the Samurais:

Munezo Katagiri's home is a modest dwelling but a place of warmth and laughter he shares with his mother, his younger sister Shino and Kie, a pretty farm girl working as a maid.

Three years pass, in which time Munezo's mother has died, his sister has married Samon, and Kie has married into the Iseya, a family of oil wholesalers, and Munezo assumes she is living happily. Encountering her out shopping one winter's day, he notices that she has grown thin and sad, and feels a tug at his heart as he watches her walk away through the snow. Several months later, hearing that Kie is ill, Munezo hurry to the Iseya, finds her lying half-dead in a dimly lit storeroom and then carries her back to his own home. Gradually she recovers, Munezo's house once again becomes a place of gaiety and laughter. The presence of Kie in Munezo's home makes him the subject of criticism.

However, a plot by members of the clan in Edo against its leaders is brought to light, and fearful that this will come to the attention of the Shogun's government, those responsible are ordered to commit suicide. Yaichiro is also implicated, and he is 'sent down' to the clan's domain, where he is imprisoned in a small hut deep in the mountains. Munezo and Yaichiro were two of the best students of Kansai Toda, former fencing instructor to the clan. Yaichiro was actually the better of the two, but for some reason Toda chose to impart his secret 'Oni No Tsume (devil's claw)' technique to Munezo.

The end of the samurai's world is now in sight, but that world is not yet ready to let Munezo go free.