Legendary swordplay filmmaker Hideo Gosha’s Sword of the Beast chronicles the flight of the low-level swordsman Gennosuke, who kills one of his ministers as part of a reform plot. His former comrades then turn on him, and this betrayal so shakes his sense of honor that he decides to live in the wild, like an animal. There he joins up with a motley group who are illegally mining the shogun’s gold, and, with the aid of another swordsman, gets a chance not just at survival but to recover his name and honor.

Alec a courageous but impetuous knight returns to his home village having been summoned by his older brother Francis to care for their ailing father. The brothers’ reunion is short-lived as a traveller terrified and half-crazed arrives to warn of an imminent attack by a winged creature with the body of a dragon the head of a gruesome insect and deadly claws. As the beast descends upon the peaceful town brash Alec draws his sword and the villagers arm themselves. Now the brothers must stand together to save their home and the people they love.