In Japan, the term chanbara (チャンバラ), also commonly spelled "chambara", meaning "sword fighting" movies, denotes the genre called samurai cinema in English, and is roughly equivalent to western cowboy and swashbuckler films. Chanbara is a sub-category of jidaigeki, which equates to period drama. Jidaigeki may refer to a story set in an historical period, though not necessarily dealing with a samurai character or depicting swordplay.