15-03-2025
‘A Samurai in Time' wins top prize at Japan's premier film event
'A Samurai in Time' capped its against-all-odds success story Friday night at the 48th Japan Academy Film Prize ceremony, where it received the award for best film.
Director
jidaigeki
(period dramas) centers on a samurai who is transported from the late 1860s to modern-day Kyoto. Finding himself on a jidaigeki set, he soon becomes a
kirare-yaku
— an actor specializing in dying during sword-fighting scenes — and falls in love with the genre.
A true Cinderella story, 'A Samurai in Time' was shot on a shoestring budget — funded in part by Yasuda selling his car and borrowing from his savings — with a small crew of just 10 people. Initially released in a single Tokyo cinema last August, the film gained momentum through word-of-mouth praise. By October, it had expanded to theaters nationwide and climbed into the box-office top 10.
