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The Twilight Samurai

7.6

5,469

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2 Related Movies

Related to:

Love and Honor

Related to:

The Hidden Blade

Original title

Tasogare seibei (The Twilight Samurai)

Year

2002

Running time

129 min.

Country

Japan

Director

Yôji Yamada

Screenwriter

Yôji Yamada, Yoshitaka Asama. Novels: Shûhei Fujisawa

Cast

Music

Isao Tomita

Cinematography

Mutsuo Naganuma

Producer

Shôchiku, Nippon TV, Eisei Gekijo, Hakuhodo, Nippon Shuppan Hanbai, Sumitomo Corporation

Genre

Drama. Romance | Samurai. Family Relationships. 19th Century. Feudal Japan

Synopsis

19th century Japan. Seibei, a just-widowed samurai, struggles to care for his senile mother and two young daughters. He holds back from a possible remarriage, self-conscious about his poverty. When ordered to kill a skilled rebel swordsman, he can't evade his dangerous duty.

Rankings Position

#62 Best Japanese Movies of all time
#81 Best Movies of the 21st century
#86 Best Romantic Movies in the history of film

Awards: 2003: Nominated for Oscar: Best Foreign Language Picture

2003: Berlin Film Festival: Official Selection

2003: Premios de la Academia Japonesa: 13 awards. 15 nominations

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Critics' reviews

"This is an absolutely brilliant film but in a quiet way"

Stephen Hunter: The Washington Post
"A gorgeous, emotionally rewarding masterpiece that invites compassion, reflection and, at least from this reviewer, a great deal of admiration."

Dallas Observer
"It's wonderful to see a Japanese movie in which a samurai, for all his somber discipline and skill, is also a touching and complicated ordinary man"

Owen Gleiberman: Entertainment Weekly
"This is a determined, resolutely paced, and atypical samurai movie, more an epic of the heart than of the battlefield, and all the more powerful for it."

Marc Savlov: Austin Chronicle
"The anti-'Kill Bill.' This is an old man's movie in all the good ways: gentle, humanistic, rich with observation, quietly aware of all that can't be solved by the sword"

Ty Burr: Boston Globe
"Gentle, muted film of limited aesthetic ambition"

Ronnie Scheib: Chicago Reader

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The Twilight Samurai

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