Yoji Yamada, director of the award winning Twilight Samurai returns to the short stories of Shuhei Fujisawa for his second period piece, The Hidden Blade.
Munezo Katagiri is a samurai in 19th century feudal Japan who finds himself torn between loyalty to a dying tradition and his love for a lowly farm girl. The film begins with Munezo bidding farewell to Yaichiro, his friend and fellow samurai as he takes up a new post. Munezo is in love with his family´s maid but knows that he cannot marry someone of her inferior social standing.
In a changing society that is seeing the replacement of the sword with the gun, Munezo´s ambivalence about his way of life comes to a head when he is ordered to a kill a traitor: his old friend Yaichiro..