Twilight Samurai

I've been a fan of Hiroyuki Sanada for years and found this on an Amazon search. Quite glad that I bought it because it's quite an excellent study on the way life must have been for the "regular joe" Samurai in fuedal Japan. Most samurai movies are generally of the heightened, adventurous, swash-buckling types. This is definitely not that so if you're looking for an action movie about samurai, keep looking.What this is, is a study of a man trained as a lower-level samurai and just trying to get by with a life that has seen its share of hardships. Before this film, I was unaware that there were different social classes of samurai and that your life as a samurai could be more or less difficult because of it. Sanada is a long-time and popular actor in both his native Japan and globally (he was with Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai). He plays the "twilight samurai" who is trying to just take care of his two daughters and his elderly mother while holding down a menial clerk's job. He has no desire to take anyone's life even though that is his job and he has to do it if his superiors tell him to. That is what essentially happens and his struggle to do his duty and live a simple life is the core of the story along with his efforts to help a woman who was his childhood friend and who he has now fallen in love with. Sanada garners your sympathy from the outset and makes you fervently wish for a happy ending for him. Does he get it? You'll have to rent or buy this to find out because I'm not going to spoil it for you!There are English subtitles which are quite easy to read but I did find myself wishing I knew even a little Japanese so that I could concentrate on watching the actors and their expressions even more. The movie has a fairly naturalistic tone to it; the characters are not behaving with heightened or exaggerated language or actions. I found it to be quite effecting after I watched it.

A friend and I, both long time martial artists and lovers of good films, came across this movie quite by accident. We watched the movie using the subtitles, and were immediately hooked. It was amazing as a complete story with such good development of those dynamics and personalities that characterize life for everyone, e.g. at work with the conversations while Seibei was at his station and the chatter when he left, Seibei's relationship with his senile mother, his two beautiful daughters and his retarded servant, Seibei's interactions with his boss, a jealous drunk, and so on. Everything carried such great authenticity without the overblown emotiveness that seems to have characterized many of "Samurai" movies. Being keen on observing how the combat scenes were played out, I was tremendously impressed with all phases, e.g., when Seibei is warming up his mind and body for a duel, feeling out of shape and slow (like the other Samurai he didn't practice much at all as he had a family and work), the melee itself, which was kept completely appropriate in duration, action level and technique given the relative conditioning of each, and with a twist I don't want to give away. Ditto for the final combat scene which Seibei was forced into, and in a truly believable way. Nothing felt overblown or exaggerated. The final moments of the final battle were unlike any I'd seen before, and possibly full of subtleties that are symbolic to Japanese that are beyond my specific knowledge. Yet the whole battle was absolutely epic in range of its engagement on an emotional, intellectual and physical level. My mind is still ringing with it. To sum up, I watched this movie without once thinking "That's bulls***" or feeling a particular scene was overdone or stupid or implausible. I can't rate this movie highly enough.

This Japanese Period drama, set in about 1865, 3 years before the Meiji Restoration, is among the best of its genre to be produced. Yoji Yamada wanted to make a period piece that was realistic, and not a "super hero" samurai story where 20 swordsmen are killed in 1 minute by a single non-scratched foe (especially the Japanese TV period dramas and Kurosawa to some extent).It follows the life of a lower level, 50 koku (30 to live on) accountant samurai in what is now Yamagata Prefecture, beginning with the death of his wife from tuberculosis ("consumption"). We learn later that he had to sell his katana (long sword) to pay for the funeral to meet clan standards, so he was a samurai who had sold the basis for his samurai life (the katana is the soul of the warrior). Heavily in debt, he is carried along by situations of his own and others' making, until he is forced into a conflict he wished to avoid. In some ways, he is the type of hero that you find in Eastwood's "Unforgiven."The story is slow but steady, and Sanada makes the character of Seibei one that a modern person can easily relate; someone caught inescapably in the rat race of his time.The DVD is OK with two interviews, one with Yamada and one with Sanada and 3 trailers (2 for other movies), but the subtitles are burned into the film. They are also only in English. This is unfortunate because the actors deliver Japanese that is understandable (compared with a Toshiro Mifune delivery-"Aba yo"), and you have to try to ignore the subtitles to concentrate on the Japanese. (I find myself even reading subtitles for an English movie.) I would be happier if the subtitles could be turned off.Even with the shortcomings of the DVD, this is a 5-star film.

It's a shame; I really wanted to see this, but I had to return it.(I gave it 3 stars instead of 1 because there was no problem with the return.)