Why have samurai movies become so middle-aged and sedate? Starting in the silent days and continuing through their 1950s peak, period films with top-knotted heroes typically featured a big one-against-many finale with flashing swords and the occasional firearm. Especially in the early days, both actors and audiences were skewed young.
In recent years, however, the genre has taken a more settled, nonviolent turn. Instead of a swordsman slicing opponents by the dozens, the hero is a bookkeeper, as in "Bushi no Kakeibo (Abacus and Sword);" an astronomer, as in "Tenchi Meisatsu (Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer);" or a cook, as in "Bushi no Kondate (A Tale of Samurai Cooking: A True Love Story)."
One igniter of this trend was Yoji Yamada's "Samurai Trilogy," beginning with the 2002 film "Tasogare Seibei (The Twilight Samurai)." The title hero (Hiroyuki Sanada) was a clan clerk — a samuri salaryman — who hurried home every evening to his young daughters and drew his sword with extreme reluctance.