I know that a lot of my movie picks are martial arts movies, however these movies are still great movies. I will not watch, let alone enjoy, just any martial arts movie - only the best.
I loved this movie because it came as such a surprise. A friend and I were going to see a movie, so I was looking through all of the movies that were playing. I saw Twilight Samurai in the listings and thought to myself, "What is this?!" I had never heard of it, so I looked it up at rottentomatoes.com and found that critics gave it great reviews (98%).
We showed up at the movie a little early and I looked through the 5-10 other people sitting in the theater as I eagerly awaited the film. Why were they here? How did they hear of the movie and why did they want to see it? I am a big movie fan - especially anything with the word "Samurai" in the title - and I hadn't even heard of this movie. It reminded me of chess club - I had sort of the same feeling at a pre-screening for Shaun of the Dead. These were the other movie nerds in the Twin Cities. These are some of the other few people who really understand what a good movie is. I felt like the movie-watching elite had unknowingly come together - not by chance, but by some mysterious force - sort of like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I don't know if I've ever enjoyed watching a movie in the theater more than I did with Twilight Samurai. It was a great movie - surprisingly little action, yet exactly the right amount. Great acting and directing that reminded me of some older Japanese movies (e.g. Kurosawa's films), and a wonderful love story.