Just started watching the Zatoichi series of samurai films, the title character being a blind master swordsman living a more mundane life but being dragged back into violence and righting wrongs. Wow, they're good. Started with Zatoichi's Cane Sword, was enthralled: superb acting, prefectly paced (slow) build up of characters and motivation, interspesed with sudden violent sword fights. In this one a key element is the local blacksmith noticing that Zatoichi's sword having a hidden crack and being likely to break - leading up to the final shwodown with the baddie
And people say sequels are ropey - this is the 15th movie apparently !
Now started watching them from the first movie - all on youtube.
I had quite wrongly categorised Zatoichi as B-movie fare compared to (say) Kurosawa's masterpieces, but these really are quality movies, at least going by the 3 I've so far watched