Samurai I Loved / Chorus of the Cicadas / Semishigeru (2006)

Semishigeru follows the unexpectedly eventful life of the young samurai Bunshiro from his teens to full adulthood. Like many of the heroes in movies based on Shuhei Fujisawa stories, Bunshiro is on the periphery of the real action in his clan, knowing little or nothing about the politics even as he is swept up in …

Love and Honor (2006)

Since it is also based on a story by Shuhei Fujisawa, Love and Honor is naturally compared to Twilight Samurai and Hidden Blade, Yoji Yamada's two previous films adapted from the same author. Though like those other two movies it includes a sword duel, it is really about a husband and wife and the world …

Hidden Blade / Kakushi ken: Oni no tsume (2004)

Hidden Blade revisits the end of the samurai era when western concepts are beginning to penetrate into the more remote areas of the country. Based on stories by Shuhei Fujisawa, whose work was also used for Twilight Samurai, and once again directed by Yoji Yamada, the story also concerns an impoverished samurai who is ordered …

Twilight Samurai / Tasogare Seibei (2002)

Iguchi is nicknamed “Twilight” by the samurai he works with because he always goes home at twilight rather than stopping for a drink or two with his compatriots, but Twilight Samurai also takes place in the 1860s, the twilight of the samurai era itself when the Shogunate is about to fall. Iguchi has good reasons …