Samurai Movie: Twilight Samurai

I recently saw the movie “The Twilight Samurai” on a friends recommendation.

The film is from 2002, and was an Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film… I hadn’t even heard of it… Not sure how I missed this one.

The Japanese movie title is 「たそがれ清兵衛」 , and is based on a Japanese book of the same title.

The Twilight Samurai is a samurai named Seibei who has lost his wife, but continues to takes care of his two girls by himself. The time taken keeping house interrupts his samurai lifestyle, and he becomes the object of ridicule among the other samurai in his clan. Seibei is fine with this however, and would rather retire and become a farmer than climb the usual social ladder like his friends.

Eventually a woman comes into his life, he is foreced to fight for her honor… and to say anymore would be spoiling it.

This was seriously one of the most memorable love stories I have ever seen. One of the most memorable Samurai stories… One of the most memorable characters! What an ending!

I’m a fan.

The bonus material on the DVD includes an interview with the actor who played Senibei, Hiroyuki Sanada (wiki link)… In English! It was weird to hear him struggling with English after watching him play such a confident Samurai in the movie. His English is great though, he speaks much better than I had anticipated. Sanada was also in The Last Samurai, Ring, and Rush Hour 3 with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker… He gets around.

Good stuff!

OK I’m calm now.

- Harvey

Some Japanese vocabulary I picked up while watching the movie. Not necessarily everyday stuff… as this was a samurai movie. But fun nevertheless.

黄昏 - たそがれ - twilight

たちまち - as quick as a wink

論語 - ろんご - Analects of Confucius

縁談 - えんだん - talk about marriage, or just “marriage”

時刻はやつ - a swank way to say “8 o’clock”

まぐれで - by accident, dumb luck, a fluke. 「まぐれで剣が頭に当たっただけだ。」 My sword just happened to hit him on the head by accident.