Traveling on the road, Zatoichi (Katsu) encounters a dying man who gives him a bag full of money and the name "Taichi". Traveling on, he makes the acquaintance of a blind biwa-playing priest. The two travel to a town that is having their annual thunder drum festival. The town is under the domination of a Yakuza boss who extorts from the people.
Seeking to atone for his violent past, Zatoichi (Katsu) embarks on a pilgrimage to visit the 88 shrines on Shikoku. On the road, a man (Igawa) attacks Zatoichi but is killed by him. Zatoichi follows the man's horse back to his home.
In a rural village, Zatoichi (Katsu) encounters Shushi Ohara (Suzuki; modeled after 18th-century agriculturalist Yagaku Ohara) a sword-less ronin who defends himself against multiple attackers without killing them. Ohara leads a peasant movement advocating the abstention from gambling, drinking, and whoring.
Juste avant sa mort, un chef yakuza désigne Izumi Hoshi, jeune lycéenne délinquante, comme héritière à la tête du gang. Celle-ci accepte le poste et affronte les dangers et responsabilités du monde yakuza.
A woman in a wedding dress, the Bride (Uma Thurman), lies wounded in a church, having been attacked by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She tells their leader, Bill (David Carradine), that she is carrying his baby. He shoots her.
Zatoichi (Katsu) checks into an inn where he shares a room with an ill woman and her young son named Ryota. Before the woman dies, she requests that Zatoichi take her son to his father, an artist living in the nearby town of Maebara.
Zatoichi comes to a village which is the local hub of family farms in a silk growing region. The most prominent villager is Matsugoro who apparently will stop at nothing to bring all under his control. The small village does have a kind doctor, Dr. Junan, who lives with his daughter Oshizu.
Zatoichi's travels have finally brought him back to the village where he was trained in the arts of the masseur, nearly ten years ago by his old sensei, Master Hikonoichi. His proximity to his former teacher compels him to pay a visit, only to learn that Hikonoichi was recently killed while traveling, and his daughter Sayo has been sold into prostitution to repay the money lent to her father by local business man Tatsugoro. Zatoichi sets out to free Sayo, only to discover that the entire village is suffering -- victims of a scheme that has either forced their daughters into prostitution, or into doing the bidding of Tatsugoro, who is working for the corrupt Intendant, Isoda. Sayo provides him with the toggle of a medicine pouch, recovered from her father's hand.
Sawaki (Shin'ichi Tsutsumi) is a postman. He has an old friend Noguchi (Keisuke Horibe) who, unknown to him, had become a yakuza. Noguchi was being spied by the police for a long time. One day Sawaki delivers a letter to him and stays at his place for a while. During his stay Noguchi puts a package of drugs into Sawaki's letter bag. His finger, which he cut off as a symbol of loyalty to his gang, also accidentally falls into the bag. Viewing his relationship with Noguchi, the police think that Sawaki is a member of the yakuza and follow him. On reaching home, Sawaki finds a suicide note in his bag written by a cancer patient to her aunt. He rushes to the hospital to see the girl Kyoko (Kyoko Toyama) and falls in love with her. He meets a hit man Joe (Ren Osugi) there who tells him how he had won the contract killing competition called the "Killer of killers". The police profiler (Tomoro Taguchi), who was following Sawaki, comes to the conclusion that Sawaki is a member of the criminal gang. Meanwhile, Naguchi discovers that the finger he had cut was no longer in his house. All this marked the beginning of problems for Sawaki.
Cinq ans ont passé après la guerre entre les Sanno et les Hanabishi, les deux grandes familles du crime organisé japonais, à laquelle l’ancien chef Yakuza Otomo a survécu. Aujourd'hui, il travaille maintenant en Corée du Sud pour M. Chang, un intermédiaire respecté dont l’influence s’étend jusqu’au Japon. Lorsque la vie de M. Chang est en danger, le dévoué Otomo reviendra au Japon pour régler les choses à sa façon et surtout pour achever définitivement le conflit contre les Hanabishi.
Emprisonné dans un camp de prisonniers au Japon lors de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, un soldat américain, Nick Poppa Lowell, est libéré à la fin de la guerre grâce à son compagnon de cellule japonais et yakusa. Lowell décide de rester au pays du Soleil Levant pour y apprendre la culture yakusa, dont divers rituels avant de devenir l'un des rares étrangers à intégrer ce syndicat du crime.
Dans la prison d'Abashiri de Hokkaidō, Shin'ichi Tachibana, prisonnier modèle à six mois de la fin de sa peine de prison, est menotté à Gonda, un criminel endurci. Lorsque Gonda et d'autres détenus s'échappent de la prison, Tachibana doit suivre.
En 1988 à Hiroshima, avant la promulgation de la loi contre le crime organisé, une rumeur prétend que le détective Shogo Ogami a des liens avec les yakuza. Il est associé au détective Shuichi Hioka et enquête sur une affaire de personne disparue impliquant un employé d'une société financière. Les conflits entre les groupes opposés de yakuza deviennent plus sérieux.
Ryoko Yanu, surnommée Oryū la pivoine rouge, se rend à Nagoya auprès du clan Nishinomaru pour poursuivre sa formation de yakuza. Malgré des présentations en règle, elle est fraichement accueillie car une rumeur la présentant comme une tricheuse est parvenue aux oreilles du clan. Heureusement la lettre de recommandation de Kumatora convainc Teijiro Sugiyama, le chef du clan Nishinomaru, de l'accueillir sous son toit. Il s'avère que c'est Otoki, la mère de la jeune fille aveugle qu'Oryū a sauvé lors de son voyage vers Nagoya, qui a usurpé son identité et qui est à l'origine de la rumeur.
In Kurashima City, there are two yakuza families; the Kawade, who use political connections to further their activities, and the Ohara, who have an alliance with the local police. When Ohara acting boss Hirotani usurps a staged land deal away from Kawade, thanks to the help of his police friend Kuno, a war breaks out. At the same time, Kuno's superiors start cracking down on the yakuza and command the cops stop fraternizing with criminals.