Oichi the Blind helps a woman escape the clutches of a high government official to go off with the man she loves. The official puts a reward on her head of fifty gold pieces and soon a menagerie of bounty hunters are after her skin. Three of them band together to accomplish this, one an expert swordsman, another a huge judo master and the third is deadly with a chain. To escape, she heads for the fishing town of Itso but soon comes face to face with Sankuro, the swordsman...
A young female samurai comes upon a dying messenger and agrees to deliver the scroll he was carrying to its destination. However, unbeknownst to her, the scroll is actually a formula for a new kind of gunpowder. An evil clan that is planning to overthrow the Emperor is also after the scroll, and they try to take it from her.
Shinichi is not only poor, he is also deaf, and leads a joyless life with his sick mother. His one happiness is his friendship with a girl who works in a bar nearby. Then, one day, his mother dies after drinking the medicine that Shinichi himself gave her. It is discovered that the pills contained poison. He is apprehended on suspicion of murder and taken away for interrogation, unable to defend himself - being deaf and dumb - or even to proclaim his innocence.
