Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Twilight Samurai, The

EMAILPRINTEmpire Pictures

Twilight Samurai, The reviews
82
9.0 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Action  |  Drama  |  Foreign

Written by: Yoji Yamada
Yoshitaka Asama
Shuuhei Fujisawa (novels Tasogare Seibei, Chikkou Shiatsu and Iwaibito Sukehachi)

Directed by: Yoji Yamada

Release Date:
Theatrical: April 23, 2004
DVD: December 28, 2004

Running Time: 129 minutes, Color

Origin: Japan

Language(s): Japanese (with English subtitles)

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Rie Miyazawa, Nenji Kobayashi, Ren Osugi, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Hiroshi Kanbe, Miki Itô, and Erina Hashiguchi

A family drama set in the late nineteenth century Japan, as the feudal Shogun period was giving way to the Meiji Restoration. (Empire Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Seibei's story is told by director Yoji Yamada in muted tones and colors, beautifully re-creating a feudal village that still retains its architecture, its customs, its ancient values, even as the economy is making its way of life obsolete.

Read Full Review >
100

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

This is an absolutely brilliant film but in a quiet way.

Read Full Review >
100

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

A gorgeous, emotionally rewarding masterpiece that invites compassion, reflection and, at least from this reviewer, a great deal of admiration. It's no wonder that it won 12 Japanese Academy Awards.

Read Full Review >
91

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It's wonderful to see a Japanese movie in which a samurai, for all his somber discipline and skill, is also a touching and complicated ordinary man.

Read Full Review >
90

LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

Perhaps because this is director Yoji Yamada's 77th movie, every aspect of his filmmaking is placidly assured and meaningful.

Read Full Review >
90

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Deeply affecting.

90

Washington Post Mark Jenkins

Combines novelistic detail with cinematic sweep.

Read Full Review >
90

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Yamada shoots his movie with a grandfatherly expertise, never squeezing the drama for juice or distancing us too far from the characters -- it's a pleasure to see a movie that makes every shot count, narratively and emotively.

Read Full Review >
89

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

This is a determined, resolutely paced, and atypical samurai movie, more an epic of the heart than of the battlefield, and all the more powerful for it.

Read Full Review >
88

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Reflective, touching, intimate portrait of a samurai facing action in his waning years.

Read Full Review >
88

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Twilight is a great samurai film in the way that "Unforgiven," "The Gunfighter" or "Will Penny"--all muted, somber films about aging gunfighters--are great westerns.

Read Full Review >
83

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

The pace of this Oscar nominee may be a bit contemplative for audiences seeking "Yojimbo"-style action, but it's surely a more realistic and moving look at life in 19th-century Japan.

Read Full Review >
80

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Welcome to Yoji Yamada. After decades of comedies, he arrives--in this country, at least--with a uniquely touching samurai film. At the age of seventy-three, he starts a new career.

Read Full Review >
80

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Mr. Yamada is confident that by taking his time and relishing the leathery arrogance that is the perquisite of a director in his 70's, his audience will follow his whims.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

There are a few fight scenes, but they're as unshowy as the rest of this restrained film. If your warrior ideal is Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill," you may not have the patience this gentle story demands of its viewers.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Post V.A. Musetto

The stylish flick harkens back to the work of old masters like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu.

Read Full Review >
75

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Timeless.

Read Full Review >
75

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The anti-"Kill Bill." This is an old man's movie in all the good ways: gentle, humanistic, rich with observation, quietly aware of all that can't be solved by the sword.

Read Full Review >
75

Miami Herald Marta Barber

Not for those with limited attention spans, though there's never a dull moment.

Read Full Review >
70

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

The film's septuagenarian director deserves his share of the credit for bringing this human story to the screen with engaging B-movie modesty and no small measure of chops.

Read Full Review >
70

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Though it includes a couple of sword fights, Yamada's epic domestic drama could easily be called an anti-samurai film. But its aim is less to subvert the genre's conventions than to deepen them, extending its parameters to include the minutia and rhythms of everyday life.

Read Full Review >
70

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

The film is a bit of a slog, but in the end, it's a slog worth taking, thanks to a strange, moving ending that reduces the samurai era's codes of warfare, class, and honor down to two men meeting face to face.

Read Full Review >
70

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Although the pace is slow, "Twilight" is a moving account of a family in crisis and the love that provides a short window of happiness for the father.

Read Full Review >
60

Variety David Stratton

A mellow, stately, contemplative study of a stoic, brave man, but it doesn't deliver in the action department.

Read Full Review >
50

Chicago Reader Ronnie Scheib

Gentle, muted film of limited aesthetic ambition.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 22 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Eric S. gave it a9:
A little slow at some points but still both fascinating in its portrait of daily life in the samurai era and moving as well. A great film.

DianeMaria B. gave it a10:
I believe that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen. I cried. This movie has a very large heart, and involves skill, money, society, family, death, love and honor. Fabulous!

jeffsan k. gave it a10:
Loved the acting so much, I could feel every emotion of each of the characters. This is not a samurai story for kids who like a bunch of karate scenes - it's a great emotional story. You don't just watch this movie, you also feel it.

Chris A. gave it a10:
I love this movie! So did my whole family!!!!!

armando s. gave it a9:
Those looking for a typical Samurai movie will be disappointed-the protagonist is a reluctant fighter who has to be coerced into using his sword. However, this is a wonderful depiction of Japanese life during a period of societal upheval-when the old ways clashed with the new order-a much more thoughtful movie then The Last Samurai, it is moving and elegaic- but probably too slow moving for most American tastes.

Daniel M. gave it a3:
This movie is long, boring, and uninteresting in all sorts. I don't understand all the high ratings. It's no where near the level of Kurosawa's work. Story is basically about a man who loses his wife and is left with two daughters and a mother suffering from what seems to be alzheimers. The story just drags on to how he falls in love with his childhood friend which is his bestfriends little sister blah blah blah. When I watch a japanese period film I expect some samurai action this movie lacks a lot of it. There's only 2 fight scenes, one where he fights with a wooden training sword and the other one sucks. Nothing incredible about this movie whatsoever. Go watch Seven Samurai or Sanjuro two of Kurosawa's best works and two of the best Japanese period films in my opinion.

Bill J. gave it a10:
Fantastic movie! Great character development and supposedly historically accurate. Really enjoyed it and am going to buy the DVD. It was so refreshing to see a REALISTIC sword fight where people actually get cut up with their sharp swords and aren't floating in the air doing fake gymnastics. The director in his comments echoed that this was one of the things he wanted to depict.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use