TWILIGHT SAMURAI (Tasogare Seibei)
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B+
Empire Pictures
Directed by: Yoji Yamada
Written by: Yoshitaka Asama, Yoji Yamadanovel by Shuhei
Fujiwawa
Cast: Hiroyuki Sanada, Rie Miyazawa, Nenji Kobayashi, Min
Tanaka, Tetsuro Tamba, Michinojo Linuma, Miki Ito
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 4/1/04
We New Yorkers are accustomed to stereotyping the visitors
who come to our town from other parts of the world. The
Germans, who are Europe's most avid travelers to the U.S., can
be seen in our subways, which could mean either that they're
thrifty or that they want to see the real New York. As for
Japanese, until recently they've seemed to stick quite closely to
their tour groups, not so much because they could be lost in a
city that has few signs in Japanese, but because their culture
stresses the important of the group, believing that, "The tallest
blades of grass gets mowed." Even in their home country today,
Japanese groups prefer not to take formal votes on proposals
but to strive mightily for consensus.
We can see, then how a century and a half ago during the Edo
period in Japan, a guy like Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada whose
character elicits the Japanese name for the pic, "Tasogare
Seibei," or "Twilight Seibei") is looked upon by his peers as a
laughing stock. A petty samurai warrior (possibly the equivalent
in America today of a corporal), he refuses to join his fellow
samurai for drinks at night. Seibei goes home directly after his
day's activities, at twilight, because he must take care of his
senile mother and also his two daughters who have been left
without a mother after Seibei's wife dies from tuberculosis. Often
his childhood pal, the lovely Tomoe (Rie Miyazawa), plunges into
his house during the day to help with the cleaning and the
caretaking. We suspect this is because she has her heart set on
marriage to the man, her own having ended in divorce because
of her ex's love for sake.
What puts "Twilight Samurai" at an opposite pole from such
movies as "Kill Bill" is that its 71-year-old director, Yoji
Yamada with seventy-seven films under his belt and awards for
his "Tora-san" series about a wandering peddler regularly in
love is intent on showing us how samurai really lived. Uma
Thurman's prowess notwithstanding, warriors did not die instantly
with a cut but often fought for two or three hours, finally dropping
from loss of blood. Nor did the samurai necessarily wear the
fancy costumes prevalent in the works of Akira Kurusawa ("The
Seven Samurai" for example, which does embrace the same
humanity as this film).
One aspect of the myth that's true, however, is that a samurai
warrior however humble in caste is bound to obey the dictates of
his superior, just as his equivalent, the European knight, must
give his suzerain absolute deference at least in theory. In
punctuating the concept well known in American cinema of the
peaceful family man who must brandish a weapon and fight,
Yamada presents the title character as a man dedicated to his
daughters, and of course to his mother whose senility ("From
what household are you?") as her regular comment to her son
stands in as one of the comic breaks in an otherwise somber
story.
While much of the film is a family drama, revolving at its most
interesting as a pursuit of the hero by the pretty Tomoe
presumably despite his unpleasant body odor (he spends too
much time taking care of his family to bother washing properly),
lovers of battle will get their satisfaction from the struggle
between the twilight Seibei and Tomoe's drunken ex-husband,
stick against sword. the stick fighter so good that he could be a
potential teacher of the club-wielding actor The Rock in the
latter's latest movie, "Walking Tall." The climactic struggle is a
winner, the audience perhaps ready to yell to Seibei "Don't
believe him," when the leader of a rival clan tries to talk his way
out of a life-and-death struggle with Seibei, who has been
commanded to kill the gentleman.
Yoji Yamada paces his film slowly, the better to give his
audience the real thing, the genuine feel of life among the warrior
caste, showing them to be human beings not so different from
21st-century Americans in their love for fighting, drinking, telling
jokes, having to take orders from the boss, and flirting.
Not Rated. 129 minutes.(c) 2004 by Harvey Karten at
Harveycritic@cs.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 37491 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1269016 X-RT-TitleID: 10003644 X-RT-SourceID: 570 X-RT-AuthorID: 1123 X-RT-RatingText: B+
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