Increased competition between two samurai brothers, threatening to tear their clan apart, eventually leads them to a duel to the death in the early Edo Period. One of them is trained in the famous Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, while the other was taught a secret technique by his master Miyamoto Musashi. The very first pairing of screen legends of Raizo Ichikawa (Sleepy Eyes of Death series) and Shintaro Katsu (Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman series).—Joseph A. Hedger