The Twilight Samurai

This next movie is one of my all time favorites. The Twilight Samurai is a 2002 period piece set in feudal Japan.
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This is NOT your typical samurai film. There are no armies massing, no blood baths, revenge yarns, or characters driven to ritualistic suicide or otherwise ridiculous extremes by outdated (most will say) codes of honor.
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Set in Japan's Meiji era, the last days of the samurai warriors, it follows Seibei Iguchi, a low-level samurai widower who has to look after his 2 daughters and senile mother. Most lesser samurai in that period were relegated to bureaucratic work rather than actual fighting, although Seibei does have tremendous skill with the sword.
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This movie is all about conflicts. To name a few: conflict with the parents of his late wife, with his clan, within himself whether or not to give up his samurai status to farm and spend time with his kids...
This was a huge deal in ancient Japan. Class systems ruled - the gap between the lowliest samurai and a well-to-do farmer was a really big deal. [Sidebar: this is a point missed by the movie The Last Samurai: just how much of an insult to samurai it was to all of a sudden promote peasants to warrior status.]
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This is a great drama with a little samurai swordplay, and a whole lot of insight into an every-day man of Japan long ago. Amazingly shot, acted, written, directed...
I can't possibly say enough about this movie.