The Magoichi Saga – Shirikurae Magoichi 尻啖え孫市

Based on historical events in mid 1500’s Japan, this mix of history and fiction stars Shintaro Katsu in a non-action role and Kinnosuke Nakamura as a gifted sharpshooter not a samurai as in his other films. Kenji Misumi, a noted film stylist, and in a few years the director of some of the legendary Lone Wolf films is orchestrating the story.

The film opens as Magoichi arrives in town and immediately gets into trouble with the local warlord’s men. The warlord, Nobunaga, is intrigued by Magoichi, not just because he obsessively checks out prostitutes’ feet, but also because he commands 3000 highly skilled sharpshooters who have no alliance with any warlord. Using his trusted assistant, «Monkey», Nobunaga learns that Magoichi is searching for a woman who he has fallen in love with just by a glance at her feet. He’s never seen her face. Monkey sets Magoichi up using a fake princess as bait and tries to get the 3000 men to work for Nobunaga. Magoichi is hard to fool or predict and Nobunaga’s plans don’t work out so well. And so it goes…..