In the final times of the Edo period, Shinzaemon Kosaka, a Samurai member of the Azu clan, starts a duel to the death with rival clan member Kyochiro Kazami. Before either of them can land the final blow on his opponent, an immensely powerful thunder is heard above them. Shinzaemon then suddenly wakes up in a remote village, in plain daylight, with his enemy nowhere to be found.
After seeing some ruffians trying to attack a defenseless woman, Shinzaemon tries to assist a samurai who appears to defend her, and here is where Shizaemon receives the first of many surprises of the day: He is now in modern time Kyoto. He is in the middle of a filming set, and what he just witnessed is a Jidaigeki (A period drama) being filmed. After being mistaken for an extra in the film production, our protagonist is kicked out of the set, thrown into a world he cannot recognize, and this is where the real fun (for us) begins.
This is the plot of “A Samurai in Time”, a film written and directed by Junichi Yasuda, which was presented in Fantasia 2024 yesterday. This film is not a regular “fish out the water” comedy involving time travel, but is an excellent homage to the Jidaigeki genre, and also has a deep emotional punch that I was not expecting.
In case you have not noticed, I just LOVED this film. I came in expecting a comedy with some slapstick, awkward humor, and lots of culture shock jokes at the expense of Shinzaemon, especially by being blindsided by modern technology in tons of scenes. What I got is something better than that. Way better, and I was not ready.
While there is plenty of comedy (I laughed aloud A LOT, and I normally don’t do it!!) There is also drama (that worked perfectly), dealing not only with the shock of suddenly finding yourself in a different era, but also dealing with what happened to the people you knew and loved, because…HISTORY. Also, it was very well expressed how Shinzaemon struggles with letting go of the grudges of his time and duties, while still trying to be the honorable man he always has been.
Junichi Yasuda did a magnificent job balancing all of this in the little more than 2-hour runtime. At no moment did I feel bored or tired. The script’s pacing was great, but it also works so well thanks to Makiya Yamaguchi’s excellent performance as Shizaemon Kosaka, our time wandering samurai. He managed to show a man that tries at all times to keep his stoic composure, but at the same time, we can feel his internal amazement, fears, and struggles.
The film could have been a festival of slapstick scenes and instead of that, we got a superb story with a lot of heart, loveable characters, moments of high tension, and even a top-notch samurai duel that leaves you breathless. Aside from being a time-travel adventure, the film is also a tribute to cinema, especially to the Jidaikei genre (period dramas that take place before the Meiji Restoration era, the time when Japan went through a major political change, and started to open itself to western civilization in terms of culture, industry and… I’ll stop now)
I also need to applaud the performance of Norimasa Fuke as Kyochiro Kazami. I can’t say much about his character due to possible spoilers, but as soon as he appears in the movie, the movie gets even better because this is when we really understand that Shizaemon is not yet fully content with his new life in the present as it seems. Here we can see more clearly the pain he still holds due to the grief and grudges from his not-so-distant past life.
This gave the movie a different mood, one that I thought was going to derail everything it had built, but I was wrong. It made me fall even more in love with the story and gave me a great ending.
I could write more, but would be nothing but praises, and I would rather for you to seek this film when it is available and enjoy it. You don’t need to be a fan of Samurai films, or Japanese culture to appreciate it, but if you are, you are in for a great treat.
I will definitely buy this film if it gets released in the USA or Mexico, because it has become a must-have film in my library.
And I will be reviewing more films doing our remote coverage, so stay tuned!
