Samurai of the twilight

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Movie
German title Samurai of the twilight
Original title Tasogare Seibei
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 2002
length 129 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Yōji Yamada
script Yōji Yamada
Yoshitaka Asama
production Hiroshi Fukazawa
music Yousui Inoue
Isao Tomita
camera Mutsuo Naganuma
cut Iwao Ishii
occupation

Samurai of the Twilight ( Japanese た そ が れ 清 兵衛 , Tasogare Seibei , also Twilight Samurai or Samurai in the Twilight ) is a Japanese film from 2002 by Yōji Yamada . It is based on the stories Tasogare Seibei , Hoito Sukehachi and Takemitsu shimatsu by Shūhei Fujisawa . The film belongs to the Jidai-geki genre , but is unusual in many ways because it describes the everyday life of a samurai , but there are few fight scenes.

The film is part of Yamada's so-called "Samurai Trilogy", which includes the following works: Samurai of the Twilight (2002), The Hidden Blade (2004) and Love and Honor - Bushi no ichibun (2006). Contrary to the usual genre themes such as heroism, Yamada focuses in the three productions on samurai, who live in poverty and professional stagnation shaken by strokes of fate.

action

The action takes place towards the end of the Tokugawa period , called Bakumatsu , shortly before the era of the samurai comes to an end with the Meiji Restoration . The story is told retrospectively from Ito's perspective. Her mother dies of consumption when Ito is five years old. Her father Seibei Iguchi is a low-ranking samurai and tries to support the family on his own, including Ito, her older sister Kayano and Seibei's confused mother. Seibei works as a clerk in the prince's storage office, he tills his fields on his own and builds cricket cages for additional income. In order to be able to bury his wife appropriately, he had to sell his "soul", his katana . When his work as a clerk ends at dusk, he goes home straight away instead of going to an inn with the other samurai, which is why they mockingly call him "Man of the Dawn".

Seibei is unable to keep his body and clothes in order and the prince notices it unpleasantly during a visit. The head of the family wants to urge him to marry, but Seibei refuses. He meets his old friend Michinojo Iinuma, who tells him that his sister Tomoe has returned to the family as a divorced woman after her husband Toyotaro Koda turned out to be a drunkard and a thug. Tomoe visits the Iguchi family, plays with the children and is even recognized by Seibei's mother, who no longer recognizes anyone else. In the evening Seibei escorts them back home, but there they meet their drunken divorced husband who threatens Tomoe's brother. Seibei intervenes and offers Koda a duel, which, to Seibei's surprise, starts the next day.

Since he no longer owns a katana and duels for life and death are also forbidden, he enters a duel with a wooden club, surprises with extraordinary martial arts and defeats Koda. After that, Tomoe comes to visit almost every day, helps with the house and looks after the children. When her brother suggests to Seibei that she would like to marry him, he refuses. He's afraid that Tomoe won't be able to deal with his poverty and lack of ambition any more than his first wife. Tomoe then stops her visits.

In the meantime the prince has died and there are power struggles over his successor. The victor and new prince wants to get the followers of the old out of the way and force the swordsman Zenemon Yogo to do seppuku . But he holed up in his house and just wants to face a duel. The clan remembers Seibei's successful duel with Koda and learns that Seibei learned from a master how to fight with the short sword , which is particularly suitable for domestic combat. Despite his opposition, he is ordered to look into the matter.

In fact, Seibei has absolutely no desire to kill or die. Seibei calls Tomoe for help because he cannot do his hair and dress formally by himself. During the preparations he confesses his love to her. Tomoe has to admit that she had recently accepted someone else's proposal. This admission breaks Seibei's heart. But he pulls himself together and faces the commanded duel. Seibei enters the hut and finds Yogo, who doesn't want to fight, but actually just wants to flee. In the semi-darkness he tells Seibei about the death of his wife and daughter. Feeling safe, Seibei also reports on his loss and carelessly mentions that he no longer has a katana, but only a bamboo sword. Yogo attacks him, but is killed by Seibei with his short sword. Seibei returns home wounded and finds not only his daughters there, but also Tomoe, who has been waiting for him.

In the final scene you see the aged Ito sitting in front of Tomoe and Seibei's tombstone, she tells us that the marriage only lasted three years until her father was killed in the Boshin War . Tomoe went to Tokyo with his two daughters and raised them, and after her death was buried next to Seibei.

Ishiyakushi, color woodcut by Hiroshige in the series The 53 Stations of Tōkaidō (Hoeidō edition) , around 1835

Reviews

  • “Films about Bakumatsu seem to be in vogue at the moment, as the social instability of Bakumatsu reminds the Japanese of the restless perplexity of their present. Yamada even takes this parallelism so far that he stages the first half of his film as one of his contemporary dramas. In the second half, Yamada shifts his focus to Seibei and his adversary Yogoemon. Yamada does not come to any fundamentally new insights. But the way he shows the rapprochement between the two men is great. " ( Die Welt )
  • “A loving farewell to a Japanese film genre and a myth that engages with the people and their motives with calm, sometimes beguilingly beautiful images, and tells the tragic story of a peaceful man who, against his better judgment, is rooted in his traditions with quiet humor . "( Film service )
  • “He wanted to draw a more realistic picture of the samurai, says director Yoji Yamada in the press conference. It may be that he succeeded. Seibei is not a bad swordsman and gets on your nerves with too much nobility. Otherwise he's like you and me. So pretty boring, not a hero for a film in which nothing else happens. "( Perlentaucher )

Awards

various

  • Filmmaker Yōji Yamada was 73 years old at the time of shooting and had already made almost 90 films.
  • The film was on May 20, 2008 in the IMDb with a comparatively high 8.2 points out of 10 with the votes of 5709 viewers.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Screams, tugs, samurai . In: Die Welt , February 14, 2003
  2. ↑ Twilight Samurai. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ perlentaucher.de
  4. ↑ Stephen Hunter: 'Twilight Samurai': As Brilliant as The Setting Sun. In: The Washington Post . Retrieved May 20, 2008 .
  5. ↑ User ratings for Tasogare Seibei (2002). Internet Movie Database , accessed May 22, 2015 .