This is the first Zatoichi film to use the blood spray practical effect. Coincidentally, the first Japanese film to ever make use of this effect was Akira Kurosawa's 'Sanjuro' (1962), which also featured actor Takashi Shimura.
This is the first Zatoichi film to feature Takashi Shimura (he portrays Dr Junan).
This is the third Zatoichi film to make use of a vocal song which is non-diegetic to the the soundtrack.
This is the eighteenth of 26 films to star Shintaro Katsu as Zatoichi.
While Zatoichi is repeatedly referred to as a masseur in the English subtitles, the Japanese term Anma would be more correct. Anma was both the term used for the practice and the generally nomadic practitioner of Japanese massage. In fact, edicts were passed so that massage was solely a vocation for the blind, forbidden to be learned by any with sight.