A mature, revisionist, Budd Boetticher samurai epic.
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04/21/04
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Twilight Samurai (2004)
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Reviews Counted:67
Fresh:66
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.1/10
Consensus: Samurai epic as a touching drama.
Theatrical Release:Apr 23, 2004 Limited
Synopsis: Hiroyuki Sanada, who played Ujio in Edward Zwick's Hollywood epic THE LAST SAMURAI, stars in a different kind of samurai film in Yoji Yamada's poignant drama THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI. Sanada plays the... [More]
Starring: Hiroyuki Sanada, Rie Miyazawa, Nenji Kobayashi, Min Tanaka
Director: Yoji Yamada
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Reviews for Twilight Samurai
Top Critic... both confronts the contradictions of the Bushido code in the mercenary world of political expediency and celebrates it in its purest form.
07/22/04
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.
09/24/04
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.
06/04/04
Top CriticAchingly beautiful and deeply moving, The Twilight Samurai turns a familiar genre inside out and finds it full of dramatic gold.
07/30/04
A story of a father who finds fulfillment in being a father.
05/28/07
an unconventional look at a bygone way of life. Yoji Yamada has delivered a timeless film, rooted both in past and present.
04/25/04
[The Twilight Samurai] is a brilliantly conceived and executed epic tale that brings it down to a personal level
04/26/04
One of the most beautiful period films in recent memory, made with no pretension or overstatement to tell a deeply personal story.
03/22/04
The film creeps into your affections with admirable stealth.
04/29/04
Top CriticIt's an epic tale that carries you off to a far away land, gives you a bittersweet love story, and has you rooting for the samurai accountant all the way.
07/02/04
For audiences raised on Akira Kurosawa movies, Twilight Samurai feels like something of a revelation, a movie in which the hero's struggles hardly seem epic.
05/21/04
Top CriticIt is awash in the precision and beauty of the mundane and the everyday.
08/27/04
Perhaps because this is director Yoji Yamada's 77th movie, every aspect of his filmmaking is placidly assured and meaningful.
04/29/04
At its heart, The Twilight Samurai is about as conventional as a samurai film can get.
05/20/04
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.
07/01/04
Top CriticThe closing third of the film is magnificent in the way it gathers all we have learned about Seibei, and uses it to bring depth to what could have been a routine action sequence, but is much more.
05/21/04
Top CriticWhen a traditionally good Japanese film gets you in its grip, there is nothing quite like it.
05/14/04
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.
04/28/04
Top CriticDeeply humane… a bittersweet, eloquent tribute to a man who is bent but not crushed beneath the weight of his various competing duties.
02/17/05
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