The Twilight Samurai movie

Curious facts

Did you know that..

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  Director Yamada Yoji, popular for his series "It's Tough Being a Man" ("Otoko Wa Tsurai Yo") which started in 1969 and is the world's longest theatrical film series about a bad luck lovelorn peddler named Tora San, has won innumerable awards for his work.

• The Twilight Samurai is Yamada's 77th film and marks his 41st year as a director since his first feature, Stranger Upstairs (Nikai no Tanin).

• The movie is based on three short novels by Shuhei Fujisawa: "Tasogare Seibei (Twilight Seibei)", "Hoito Sukehachi (Sukehachi, the Beggar)" and "Takemitsu Shimatsu (Record of a Bamboo Sword)".

• Shuhei Fujisawa is one of Japan's most revered authors of samurai fictionis. Over fifty of his books were published with circulation about 23 millions copies, including both full-length novels and short story anthologies through the course of his lifetime. In 1973, Shuhei received the Naoki Award for Ansatsu No Nenrin (Annals of Assassination), establishing himself as a leading author of period stories. He would go on to win six further prestigious literary awards.

• This film is the first screen adaptation of Fujisawa's novels and the first samurai film for director Yamada.

• This meditative character-driven elegy swept the 26th Japanese Academy Awards in 2002, winning 12 of 14 awards (the second-highest number ever since Masayuki Suo's "Shall We Dance?",1996) including Best Picture and Best Director recognition for veteran director Yamada, as well as the Kinema Junpo magazine Best One prize (considered Japan's most prestigious award).
  
  Yamada also walked away with the First Hawaiian Bank Golden Maile Award for Best Film Feature at Hawaii International Film Festival in 2003.

• Rest 11 Twilight Samurai's wins of the Japanese Academy includes Best Actor (Hiroyuki Sanada), Best Supporting Actor (Min Tanaka), Best Actress (Rie Miyazawa), Newcomer of the Year (Min Tanaka), Best Screenplay (Yoshitaka Asama, Yoji Yamada), Best Editing (Iwao Ishii), Best Cinematography (Mutsuo Naganuma), Best Art Direction (Yoshinobu Nishioka, Mitsuo Degawa), Best Lighting (Genken Nakaoka), Best Music Score (Isao Tomita), Best Sound (Kazumi Kishida).

• Another great film's archivment is nomination for an Oscar in 2004 for Best Foreign Language Film, ultimately losing to Canada's Les Invasions Barbares.

• In a press statement, director Yamada notes, "At last, the time has come for realizing my long-cherished dream, to portray the realm of Shuhei Fujisawa on the screen with cinematic beauty and power. To challenge a truly authentic samurai movie is replete with excitement."

• Thorough and comprehensive investigations in Edo epoch and preparation for filming took Yoji Yamada almost one year.

• Final sword duel was shooting over whole week. Real short sword masters were invited for production. Yoji Yamada strived to show real fight not only beautiful and graceful choreography.

• Costums were created by older daughter of famous Akira Kurosawa - Kazuko Kurosawa, who worked with her father since filming "Akira Kurosawa's Dreams".

• Yamada's film helped to spark a revival in both historical filmmaking and the samurai genre in Japan, where such things had fallen out of fashion.