Most people outside of Japan had never heard of the legendary Japanese Director Yoji Yamada until the release in 2002 of his period drama "Twilight Samurai." The film was an international hit, winning Yamada audiences and accolades across the globe, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film along the way. But while Yamada may have been a bolt from the blue for cinema lovers abroad, in Japan he has long been the country's most beloved living filmmaker, thanks to his role as the creator and director of the world's longest running film franchise "Otoku wa Tsurari yo" ("It's hard to be a man"). The enormously successful films were released twice a year for nearly three decades, depicting the interminable trials and tribulations of the errant, kindly and forever lovelorn middle-aged traveling salesman Kuruma Torajiro, played by Atsumi Kiyoshi, a character known to generations of Japanese merely as Tora-san.

It is no small task to do justice to the importance of Yamada's Tora-san films. They were more than just movies. The timing of their release was made to coincide with Japan's two most important holidays, New Year and O-Bon, the Buddhist festival of the dead. Twice a year every year from 1969 until Atsumi's death in 1996, Tora-san would invariably appear at the nation's most spiritually auspicious times. "Both dates are regarded with religious reverence and Tora-san is there, each time, in a new incarnation, like an ancient festival god," the noted commentator on Japanese film and society Ian Buruma has written. "He is an icon of popular Japanese culture like no other."

Yamada's Tora-san films became a staple of cultural life in a country that had spent over 30 years engaged in the immense task of rebuilding in the wake of the near total destruction the country suffered in World War II. By the end of the 1960s and throughout the 70s, however, the Japanese were increasingly aware that they stood at the threshold of a very different future, one that would bring a previously unimaginable degree of wealth to their nation. It was at this transitional moment that Tora-san first appeared, with all the sudden and convincing force of an omen. Audiences found in the long-suffering, wisecracking and above all kind-hearted working class everyman the manifestation of some deeply felt cultural pathos that was rooted not in the nation's gilded future, but in a deeply felt nostalgia for a simpler, perhaps more genuine time.

So it was something of a surprise that after acting as caretaker of this national institution of collective yearning for close to 30 years in 2002 Yamada released the sly, pensive and masterly realized "Twilight Samurai." He followed up that success with another critically acclaimed samurai film, "Hidden Blade." Both films were adapted from stories by best-selling author Shuhei Fujisawa and both won Yamada renewed attention at home and wider recognition among audiences abroad than he had every enjoyed before.

And now, as confirmed at the second press conference of the 19th Tokyo International Film Festival on September 19 in front of a packed house of journalists and critics at Roppongi Hills, the world premier of Yamada's latest film, the samurai period drama "Bushi no Ichibun" (the English title is "Love and Honor"), will play in October as the "opening eve screening" of this year's festival.

Starring Takuya Kimura, one of Japan's most recognizable celebrities from the sensationally popular boy-band SMAP, and the relative newcomer Rei Dan as the female lead, "Bushi no Ichibun" is an adaptation of another Fujisawa book and tells the story of Mitsumura (Kiumura), a low-ranking samurai living in the Edo period who serves his daimyo (feudal lord) as a food taster, making sure his meals have not been poisoned. After eating a piece of raw snail Mitsumura suffers from server food poisoning and loses his sight. To make matters worse, soon after the incident his wife (Dan) is taken advantage of by a senior retainer while seeking to win her husband favor with the daimyo. Thus by way of a quick and unexpected one-two punch the good-natured samurai is brought low, suddenly finding himself confronting an uncertain fate in a society defined by a rigid class structure and uncompromising codes of conduct that above all else demand blind obedience to authority.

Strictly speaking "Ichibun" could not be more different from the Tora-san movies. But along with "Twilight Samurai" and "Hidden Blade" it finds Yamada still singularly occupied with characters who are defined by their outsider status. Mitsumura and his wife, like Tora-san, don't quite fit. Not only is Mitsumura blind, and therefore unable to fulfill the duties required of a samurai, his father died when he was young and we learn his wife is an orphan, a state of affairs that left them both in the awkward care of relatives. Though they represent some archetype of uprightness and fortitude they are also deeply troubled and suffering people who find themselves either unable or unwilling to conform to the unforgiving social realities imposed upon them. Like so many of Yamada's characters, Mitsumura and his wife must rely on their own wits, strength and understanding of what is just and proper to navigate the treacherous paths that life places before them.

Before appearing at the second press conference, at which the final program of the 19th TIFF was unveiled, Yamada and Den took a moment to offer their thoughts on the new film. "'Bushi no Ichibun' takes place in the Edo times, during which Japan was ruled by a feudal system," Yamada said. "In that system you were expected, above all else, to endure. But there are some situations, some human desires that don't fit into that system. And because people are people, there were a lot of situations where because of certain feelings people found they could not fit into the system. I wanted to work with the idea that even in such a rigid system, there are times when you cannot endure. It is a theme that is often seen in kabuki theatre. There comes a time when what must be endured cannot be endured, and the situation escalates, and then it explodes. There are just some things that cannot be given up on, or be handed over. There are some things that cannot be suffered in silence and that must be protected, even with your own life."

All of this unfolds in the film with Yamada's customary patience and attention to details. In one touching and unusual scene that embodies the director's masterful ability to realize moments of quiet revelation, as Mitsumura lies prostrate and feverish struggling with the food poisoning that will blind him his wife mixes his medicine into a warm cup of tea. She takes some of the mixture in her mouth and holds it there for a moment to cool it, then bends down over her stricken husband, parts his lips with her own, and ever so gently places the liquid in his mouth. It amounts to what must rank among the most touching onscreen "kisses" of all time.

"The film took place at a time in Japan when the kiss didn't really exist as a social phenomena," Yamada said, recalling the scene. "So, by asking her to give her husband the medicine the doctor was unknowingly asking her to kiss him, and that was something that was totally new for her, and totally new for a samurai film as well. While I was filming it my heart was pounding, but the actors seemed to have no problem with it at all."

A relative newcomer to feature films, Den has been afforded a rare opportunity to work with such well-respected celebrities so early in her career. But she more than holds her own, steeling several scenes in the film from her better-known coworkers. "Several times I have been asked if it was scary to work with Mr. Yamada," said Den in response to a question about what it was like to work with a cinema legend. "In fact, I did not have that impression at all. I believe that his intensity at the film set and commitment to the film is a remarkable thing and it has been very enriching to be able to work with him. If they watch the movie, those people who have asked me if was scary to work with Mr. Yamada, the would think, 'ah I made a mistake in thinking that.' There is something warm flowing through the movie and that same warmth flows through Mr. Yamada and can be seen in his love for other people and for film in general. If you see the movie it is clear that someone with warm blood has made it."

The festival is currently buzzing with anticipation at the prospect of hosting the world premier of a film by a director of Yamada's stature. Yamada is no stranger to TIFF, however. He has been spotted on the red carpet numerous times over the years. In fact, this will be the third time Yamada will premier a film at the festival, the first time coming in 1991 and the second in 1994.

"The festival has arranged a pre-opening screening this year especially for our movie," Yamada said. "Pre-opening events of this sort are not always scheduled by the festival, and that they have done so this year for our movie is something for which I am very happy, and thankful."