A Samurai in Time

Story: It's the end of the Edo era, and in these times of upheaval and the possible downfall of the shogunate the samurai Kosaka Shinzaemon (Makiya Yamaguchi) is engaged in a duel. Suddenly, a thunderstorm comes up and lightning strikes him. When he regains consciousness, he finds himself on a modern-day movie set but doesn’t know it yet. Assistant director Yuko Yamamoto (Yuno Sakura) wants to help the disoriented man, but he hits his head and loses consciousness. After waking up in a hospital, he secretly leaves and wanders through the city. He ends up near the movie set again and falls asleep completely exhausted in front of a Buddhist temple. The head of the temple (Yoshiharu Fukuda) and his wife take him in and also notify Yuko, as they think Kosaka could be an extra considering his style of clothing. In fact, Yuko has been looking for him the entire time since his disappearance from the hospital. Meanwhile, Kosaka has discovered television and the jidaigeki genre, which depicts his original time period. He is totally thrilled and asks Yuko to be allowed to work as an extra. Although the genre doesn’t seem to have any future anymore as it is dying, she manages to get Kosaka a job. His way of speaking and his sword fighting skills make him quite convincing in his roles, but he only plays the tiny supporting roles of henchmen who are constantly struck down by the hero. But since he puts a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it, people start to notice his talent, and an opportunity comes up that he would never have expected ...

Review: You can't really call the premise of "A Samurai in Time" imaginative. At least not the time travel aspect. However, once you have come to terms with this, the movie turns out to be quite original. It starts with the fact that this comedy is a declaration of love to the "jidaigeki" genre, i.e. historical movies or shows that are set in the Edo period before the modernization of Japan. At the same time, the movie is also dedicated to Seizo Fukumoto, who is said to have been struck down in over 50,000 movies and was introduced to an international audience in "Last Samurai" as an elderly and mute samurai. And the protagonist of "A Samurai in Time" is destined to have a similar fate, but first he has to find his bearings in the new world he has been thrown into. Since this is a comedy, you might expect a lot of gags to be based on how he is confronted with technology, but thankfully this takes a back seat here. The funny scenes are by no means hackneyed and don’t just work on a slapstick level, and even if they do sometimes, those moments are played with such seriousness that you actually have to laugh. But - and some viewers will probably be surprised by this - "A Samurai in Time" is also a drama.

It's not that hard to imagine that someone from the Edo period would feel lost in our time. Kosaka has no way of returning to his own time period and therefore somehow has to make the best of his new reality. Even though he has a chance to be a little closer to his time as an extra in jidaigekis, it sometimes seems as if this just makes his homesickness worse. Luckily, however, there is the assistant director Yuko, who always takes care of him. Clearly, the director meant to hint at a love story here, but since Yuko remains relatively flat as a character, it was a good idea to only hint at it. More interesting is the appearance of another person who shares Kosaka's pain. The twist in the story is anything but unpredictable, but it gives the drama some completely new options, and, above all, it comes exactly at a time when the events are starting to get repetitive. Kosaka learns - mainly through scripts - what has become of his clan, and he has to ask himself whether it was worth all the sacrifices and his loyalty in his time.

As a samurai he naturally retains a certain sense of honor, though, and he is therefore all the more eager to keep the code of the samurai alive in his roles and to show it to the world to come. Nevertheless, Kosaka understandably finds himself in an identity crisis. The irony is that, after the events of his time period, the Meiji era was instigated and there was no place for samurai anymore. So, in the past he would have been confronted with having to rethink everything he had previously considered to be his life too, and he would have had to look for a new purpose anyway. This is tragic, but it is only hinted at - if at all. Fortunately, though, a rival appears in the further course of the story, and even though there is no way of them becoming friends, the two realize that they are connected by the same feelings. Here, "A Samurai in Time" proves to be a surprisingly well-done character drama. The hero of the story has the necessary depth so that we can indeed root for him and suffer with him. Since the director didn't have a lot of money at his disposal, it was up to the script to compensate for this disadvantage anyway.

However, it is not noticeable at all that the production costs were just 170,000 dollars. Thanks to the wonderful sets, which are mainly sets for various jidaigeki movies, as well as the well-done directing, and some great actors, the movie looks like it was actually produced for the cinema and not just for a film festival at best. Only in a few scenes, for example when Kosaka talks to the head of the temple and his wife, does it seem as if you might be watching a cheaper production or art-house cinema. This is because the camera stays in a scene for quite some time and there are hardly any cuts. Still, this is by no means disruptive, but instead creates a rather familiar atmosphere. Without a doubt, it is above all thanks to actor Makiya Yamaguchi ("Confessions") that the movie has such a good flow. He carries the story excellently, and ultimately, he even has to pretend having to act. You can feel the drama, his disorientation, but also his bitterness and joie de vivre the entire time.

The fighting sequences are also a nice bonus, because even though this is not primarily an action movie, there are always some sword fights in the drama series that are shot within the movie. There is no blood, though, and it is also a nice touch that the director didn’t add any sound effects of clashing blades, instead we just hear the original noise of the painted wooden swords, but the choreography still always seems well thought out and is beautiful to look at. There is even a showdown that stands out with a rather high level of suspense. So, jidaigeki fans will be satisfied in this respect too. More than anything else, though, the heart and soul with which "A Samurai in Time" was shot is just palpable. You can literally see that director Junichi Yasuda put all his savings into it and staked everything on one card. The meta level of filmmaking is another interesting aspect. Humor and drama simply hit the mark here, and there is also some good action. So, you are willing to forgive that the movie is a bit too long with its 131 minutes. "A Samurai in Time" is quite rightly an unexpected success which has already won several awards, and hopefully it will be able to build up a small fan base in this part of the world too, just as "One Cut of the Dead" or "Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes" did before it.

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