The Twilight Samurai たそがれ清兵衛

This is one of the three samurai movies by Yamada Yoji (山田洋次). The other two movies are The Hidden Blade and Love and Honour. As with the other two movies, this movie is about the changing times of Japan just prior to the Meiji Restoration. In all three movies, the lead characters are samurai belonging to the ficticious Unasaka clan.

While this movie seems to be the more highly acclaimed one, winning many awards in the Japanese Academy Awards, I myself thought that the movie wasn't as good as the other two. The love story lacked depth. And there was also no compelling reason why the lead character would even hesitate when tasked to kill a rogue samurai, unlike in The Hidden Blade, when the target was an old friend of the lead character. There wasn't the conflict between duty and conscience found in the other two movies.