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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Class Division > Prejudice > Battles > Japan > Twilight Samurai (2002/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Twilight Samurai (2002/Twilight Time Limited Edition Blu-ray)


Picture: B+ Sound: B+ Extras: C- Film: B+



PLEASE NOTE: This Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, is limited to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while supplies last from the link below.



Twilight Samurai (2002) is a critically acclaimed film and a must for fans of Japanese cinema. Capturing beautiful cinematography and filmmaking, the daring film has a skeleton of romantic drama and a strong reflection upon the importance of family, daring not to dream, and putting it all versus a system where personal freedom doesn't exist. This gives Twilight Samurai a compelling and virtually timeless quality that you don't mind is many other such films. It may be a little slow in pace but definitely makes up for it in content.


Set in mid-19th Century Japan, a few years before the Meiji Restoration, it follows the life of Seibei Iguchi, a low-ranking samurai employed as a bureaucrat. Poor, but not destitute, he still manages to lead a content and happy life with his daughters and senile mother. Through an unfortunate turn of events, the turbulent times conspire against him.


Seibei is a petty Samurai in the time just prior to the Meiji restoration. Working as an accountant, he is without any ambition. The only thing he cares for is his two young daughters and his sick mother. In fact, he cares so little for anything else, that his clothes are torn and he rarely takes a bath. His colleagues laugh about him behind his back and give him the nickname Twilight Seibei.


When his childhood friend, and first love is divorced because her husband, a wealthy Samurai, beats her up, she visits Seibei and the entire house lights up. Later, her brother, Seibei's best friend, suggests that he marries her, but Seibei won't marry because of his poverty, even though both are in love with each other.


The film was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Academy Award and winner of Twelve Japanese Academy Awards and is the 67th film by Director Yoji Yamada. Nice to see it finally arrive on Blu-ray in the U.S. market.


The sound and picture on the disc are crisp and clean with a 1080p high definition transfer and a 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio that has had some controversy for maybe being a bit pale versus other versions released on home video, but that did not seem so when viewing it. The audio has never sounded better with a powerful DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 mix that impresses and subtitles in English.


Extras are a little bare on the disc with a Isolated Score Track and a Theatrical Trailer.



To order this Twilight Samurai limited edition Blu-ray, buy it while supplies last (along with other great exclusives) at this link:


www.screenarchives.com



- James Harland Lockhart V

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