The movie follows the life of Seibei Iguchi, a low-ranking samurai, as he struggles with debt and family issues a few years before the Meiji Restoration. Seibei is a very low-ranking samurai, and earns his living as a bureaucrat in his clan's food warehouse. As the film opens, Seibei's wife has died of tuberculosis, leaving him to care for senile mother and two young daughters by himself. With a small stipend, and high debt incurred from his wife's funeral, Seibei lives a modest existence, tending to his own garden and selling handmade cricket cages for extra money. His coworkers give him the (apparently condescending) nickname "Twilight Seibei," because he disappears each night to care for his mother and daughters instead of visiting the tea houses with is comrades. Despite his harsh circumstances, Seibei is a gentle soul, and is quite happy and content to live a simple life caring for his family. But we soon learn that the twilight samurai is secretly a great fighter, and events conspire to draw this peaceful man into a deadly showdown.
This is a slow and subtle film, so if you're expecting a hyper-violent jidaigeki, you'll be disappointed. In fact there are only a two fight scenes, and though as a martial arts guy I was impressed with their realism, they're pretty low-key compared to most modern films. The story is mostly about Seibei's day-to-day struggle to make ends meet for his family, and the conflict between his social duties and the desires of his own heart. The movie is full of the small, quiet moments that make up family life, like harvesting crops in the garden or urging his daughter to study Confucius. Hiroyuki Sanada's performance as Seibei is absolutely wonderful-- though his character speaks little, Sanada conveys an amazing range and depth of emotion with little more than subtle facial expressions. When Seibei is ordered by his clan leaders to kill a disowned retainer who refuses to commit seppuku, you can read his conflicting emotions as plainly as if they were written on his face. If he fights, and dies, he will leave his family with no means to support themselves, and will never get to see his daughters grow up. And yet, if he wins, he will be rewarded with higher rank and a greater salary, and will finally be able to marry the beautiful Tomoe. But he will always have to live with a man's blood on his hands....
What I appreciated about this movie was that it gave a much more realistic depiction of samurai life than the highly romanticized versions we're typically subjected to. (I am looking directly at you, Tom Cruise.) The reality is that the Tokugawa Shogunate ushered in 250 years of peace and isolation, and by the 19th century military duties were only handled by a small number of Tokugawa retainers. The samurai were a warrior class robbed of any wars to fight, but since they were still dependent on the daimyo, it became practical to employ these highly educated men as civil servants. By the time of the Meiji Restoration, samurai were mostly bureaucrats and bean counters (or rice counters, I guess?). At least, the ones who could find jobs. There were only so many government positions to go around, and samurai were forbidden by the rules of bushido to engage in commercial activity like trading or running a business. Unemployment became a major burden in the later years of the Shogunate. Many of the jobless turned their swords to banditry, or even piracy in the Yellow Sea. As much as samurai are glamorized today, the rigidity of Japanese society caused a lot of social problems toward the end of their era.
All in all, Twilight Samurai is a quietly beautiful film about one family's struggle that offers an alternate look at the samurai way of life. Well done Instant Queue, well done.
Watch "In the Mood for Love" and "Chungking Express" if you have not already done so.
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