Following the death of the second Tokugawa shogun, it is revealed that he was poisoned by retainers of his son Iemitsu in hopes of gaining him the shogunate despite the stammer and birthmark which undermine his respect. Iemitsu and his brother Tadanaga become bitter rivals for the shogunate, and the land is split into factions, eventually erupting into warfare. Iemitsu's mentor, his fencing instructor Yagyu, is fixated upon securing Iemitsu the shogunate and ends up betraying everyone, even his own family, in pursuit of the goal.
Kinnosuke Nakamura
Sonny Chiba
Hiroki Matsukata
Teruhiko Saigō
Reiko Ōhara
Yoshio Harada
Isao Natsuyagi
Mikio Narita
Toshirō Mifune
Hiroyuki Sanada
Etsuko Shihomi
Kentaro Kudo
Jirô Chiba
Hideo Murota
Mayumi Asano
Ichirō Nakatani
Tetsuro Tamba
Etsushi Takahashi
Sanae Nakahara
Nobuo Kaneko
Shinsuke Ashida
Isuzu Yamada
Seizō Fukumoto
Nenji Kobayashi
Harumi Sone
Sen Yano