The Masseurs and a Woman

 is a 1938 Japanese comedy drama film written and directed by Hiroshi Shimizu.
Plot.
The movie opens on Toku and his fellow blind masseur friend Fuku walking down a mountain path talking about how they take pride in how many people they pass on their walks even though they are blind. They are walking north to work in a village of inns. Once there they perform their jobs and Toku encounters a woman from Tokyo who had ridden in a carriage that passed them on the road. He recognizes her by her distinct Tokyo smell. The next few scenes are comedic encounters with other customers and in particularly with a boy and his uncle. This boy meets the lady from Tokyo and she meets his uncle who becomes smitten with her. This makes Toku sad. All the while there is a rash of thefts of guest's money while they take baths. Toku believes the woman is doing this and tries to have her escape, but finds out that she is not the one doing it. Instead all the reasons he thought it was her she explains as that she was a mistress of a man she didn't like and was on the run from him. The next day Toku finds her sitting in a carriage, they say nothing but a man with a police officer also enters the carriage. It is unsaid but assumed that the man is her patron and the carriage takes off as a saddened Toku watches.
Legacy.
Film scholar Alexander Jacoby describes "The Masseurs and a Woman" as part of a group of three Shimizu films (together with "Mr. Thank You " and "Ornamental Hairpin") which "were bittersweet studies of grown-up feelings" and "group portraits set among temporary communities" that "concentrated more on the delineation of character than on plot". Distanced from social and political realities and with its largely personal concerns, it conformed, according to Jacoby, with the producing company Shochiku's tradition of "Ōfuna flavor" films (low-key domestic dramas, named after the location of the company's studios).
Home media.
The Criterion Collection released the film in the US on DVD in 2009 as part of the Eclipse Series 15: "Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu".