The Twilight Samurai

I really like Yoji Yamada’s revisionist samurai film, Twilight Samurai. The film reminds me of Clint Eastwood’s demystification of the gun fighter in his revisionist western, Unforgiven. Yamada realistically looks at how samurai lived-not all of them were wealthy nor completely devoted to their masters and willing to die for a petty grievance at a moment’s notice. It was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars in 2002. It is a realistic tale of a pre-Meiji restoration petty samurai struggling to survive on a meager salary while caring for a senile mother and raising two young daughters. The samurai is expertly played by Hiroyuki Sanada, who is known for his turns in The Last Samurai and the TV series Lost. He is a master swordsman who doesn’t like fighting and really yearns for a simple life as a farmer. His love interest is played by the charming Rie Miyazaki, and his rival is played by famous Butoh dancer Min Tanaka. It is several films at once: an unrequited love story, a samurai revisionist film, and a conventional samurai film with swordplay. It seems unlikely that such a film could come from the long-time director of the “Tora”-loveable tramp series-but it s a skilled departure for Yamada.