"Tasogare Seibei" ("The Twilight Samurai"), one of 22 movies competing in the 53rd Berlin International Film Festival, received high praise from viewers Thursday evening.
All 2,000 tickets for the official screening of the movie were sold out, with many young viewers in the audience, according to people involved with the festival.
An American movie critic said the film is worthy of the Golden Bear award for best movie.
A 24-year-old university student said: "The movie was different from the past samurai movies I have seen. It was excellent. The protagonist and two children acted well."
A 26-year-old company employee commented, "I was able to understand Seibei's psychological turmoil well," adding that there was less bloodshed in "Tasogare Seibei" than in other samurai movies.
"The movie's success in Japan was due to the middle-aged and elderly Japanese who identified themselves with Seibei's life," the director, Yoji Yamada, said at a news conference.
"While Japan today is in chaos, I wanted to show that there was an age in which Japanese lived with confidence," added Yamada, who directed the immensely popular "Otoko wa Tsuraiyo" ("It's Tough Being a Man") film series.
"Tasogare Seibei," based on a novel by Shuhei Fujisawa, tells of a samurai in the 19th century who has to come to terms with a number of misfortunes and an unusual assassination mission.