Multi-hyphenate director Junichi Yasuda made a winning time travel samurai comedy with A Samurai in Time which played Fantasia Film Festival.
Few films are as softly humorous and entertaining as A Samurai in Time that you’ll see in 2024. The movie makes adroit choices that create a fun different time travel film, one that will surprise in its low-key charm and humanity.
A stormy night in Koyto at the end of the Edo era samurai Kosaka Shinzaemon (Makiya Yamaguchi) during a duel is struck by lightning. Kosaka is transported 150 years into the future onto the set of a jidaigeki TV series. A man out of time finds his way rather quickly becoming a stuntman for the series. Though through a series of events he lands the biggest of roles in superstar (Norimasa Fuke) and his return to the genre to make the most “authentic Samurai film ever.” Through this role, Kosaka finds out is as much tied to his past as it is to his future.
There are few films as charming and quietly funny in recent memory as A Samurai in Time. The film understands there is more to this concept than the one joke “man out of time” concept that many other films would have gone the route of. Cinematographer, VFX artist, Editor, Writer & Director Junichi Yasuda has made a movie that defies the basic plot to give us more. There are so many delightful turns and twists embedded into the film one would be cautious to ruin the joys of discovery. Though it always finds its way to the most humane and funniest moments with subtle grace.
A Samurai in Time is one of those rare films that delight not in the bombastic but in the human and what connects us both in the past and the future. How the film makes those points is the magic trick many attempts to emulate but few have the skill to pull off. A Samurai in Time is not only the best films at Fantasia but is one of the truly great discoveries of 2024.