The Twilight Samurai (Tasogare Seibei) (2002)
Average Rating: 8.2/10
Reviews Counted: 68
Fresh: 67 | Rotten: 1
Samurai epic as a touching drama.
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Critic Reviews: 24
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 0
Samurai epic as a touching drama.
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Average Rating: 4.2/5
User Ratings: 9,920
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Movie Info
Veteran filmmaker Yoji Yamada -- who is perhaps most famous for cranking out most of the 48 films of the Tora-san series -- directs this good-natured drama set in the waning years of the Edo period (1600-1867). Seibei (Hiroyuki Sanada) is a low-level samurai struggling to get by on stipend of 50 rice bales a year while working as a clerk at the clan office. While his co-workers spend their evenings sucking down sake at the local pub, Seibei, whose wife has passed away, heads straight home to
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Cast
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Hiroyuki Sanada
Seibei Iguchi -
Rie Miyazawa
Tomoe Iinuma -
Nenji Kobayashi
Chobei Kursaka -
Ren Osugi
Toyotaro Koda -
Mitsuru Fukikoshi
Michinojo Iinuma -
Hiroshi Kanbe
Naota -
Min Tanaka
Zenemon Yogo -
Erina Hashiguchi
Ito Iguchi -
Miki Itou
Kayana Iguchi
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All Critics (76) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (70) | Rotten (1) | DVD (12)
The story sometimes slips into soapy territory, but when you think the schmaltz is going to ruin it, Yamada gives it just enough of a twist to make you realize this is not your regular romantic film.
Top CriticBeautifully captures the end of an age.
A small, respectful corrective.
As Iguchi, Mr. Sanada epitomizes the kind of man who can still dream and be true to himself amid the daily grind and turmoil. That's a welcome role model in any age.
About the last days of an era, whittled to a poetic vision of a worthy, solitary man.
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.
There is violence -- the gritty, bloody kind, not the balletic jumping off walls variety -- but it is kept firmly in its place and never allowed to take over.
A story of a father who finds fulfillment in being a father.
Yamada has a master's touch, creating a foggy rural world of hills, rivers, and trees in springtime
gives us a humble family man protagonist who goes against the grain of the stereotypical Samurai archetype
A masterpiece about a reluctant warrior
Deeply humane... a bittersweet, eloquent tribute to a man who is bent but not crushed beneath the weight of his various competing duties.
Twilight Samurai is to Japanese samurai flicks what Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven was to American Westerns.
The film does have some very memorable moments. And Sanada's convincing performance as the world-weary former man of action certainly helps.
Director Yoji Yamada tenderly portrays Iguchi as an anomaly among the ambitious samurai - a quiet man who would rather farm than fight.
Audience Reviews for The Twilight Samurai (Tasogare Seibei)
Sanada is really a marvel to watch; he adds a very sensible depth and modesty to the character, and infuses it with some understated comic acting as well.
As his returning childhood friend, Rie Miyazawa has a beautiful, spirited feminity that makes Sanada seem even more of a macho hunk in contrast.
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
- Samurai der Dämmerung (DE)
- The Twilight Samurai (UK)
Bonus points for cool alternate language titles: Le Samouraï du Crépuscule and Samurai in der Dämmerung.