The Twilight Samurai (2002)

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Director: Yoji Yamada

Writers: Yoji Yamada and Yoshitaka Asama, from novels by Shuhei Fujisawa

Stars: Hiroyuki Sanada, Rie Miyazawa, Min Tanaka, Nenji Kobayashi, Ren Osugi, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Kanako Fukaura, Hiroshi Kanbe



Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada), a low-ranking samurai in the years preceding the Meiji Restoration, lives in debt, a widower caring for two young daughters and his senile mother.

 


He is an office worker rather than a warrior. 



His responsibilities leave him no time to care for himself or drink with his co-workers, causing them to give him the derisive nickname that also provides the film with its title.

 


He accepts his condition gracefully until the return of a childhood sweetheart (Rie Miyazawa) and an order to kill a renegade samurai (Min Tanaka) cause turmoil in his quiet life. 



This extraordinary film is nearly perfect; it is hampered by a truly awful epilogue that looks as if it were spliced in from a sappy TV drama.



 Ignore this, if you can, and enjoy the fine film that precedes it.


Spoiler alert!!! The end of the film!!


















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