Harakiri: Movie Review

The ideal Bushido.

What attracts me to Samurai films, and what attracts the most talented filmmakers of all time to the genre, might be be just how naturally their settings can be photographed.

I’m not taking away from the filmmakers’ skill to compose a shot well, but more highlight the beauty and elegance of the empty space, parallel lines, and crisp architecture of medieval Japan. There is just something about a kneeling man, framed properly, that just looks wonderfully cinematic. I mean, these buildings are beuatiful — who hasn’t dreamed of having a Frank Llyod Wright house?

Harakiri has always stood out as my favorite Samurai movie — it has recently been remained by the modern master Takashi Miike. Will this new version be better? My brother would definatly say, “Yes! No good was ever made before the seventies!’ This antediluvian perspective might apply to the overly censored American films, but many of the greatest movies ever made were shot in the forties, fifties, in sixties — the movies just happen to be made in Japan, where censorship was light on graphic violence.

I wonder what Miike did with this scene?

What makes this period of filmmaking so fascinating, and Harakiri especially, is you can hear the filmmakers defiantly screamed out their through their artwork for women’s rights, abuse of the Bushido honor code, and rejected ideas of totalitarian dictatorships. Harakiri is a curiously simple story (revenge), told in flashbacks and the “real story” of the movie is only revealed towards the middle of the movie.

The movie opens with Hanshiro Tsugumo arriving at the house of a lord requesting to kill himself through ceremonial Seppuku. I’ve always been fascinated with Seppuku — I literally know the moment I found out what it was. I was in seventh grade history class and a teacher explained it to me and ever since it has captured my imagination. It was only when I watched Harakiri that I realized that the practice was abominable, despite how fascinating and romantic it might seem.

Moreover, Samurais without a master (ronin) would sometimes go house to house asking for a proper place to commit ritual suicide, some Daimyo — forgive me if I’m making a mistake here or there, I’m writing from memory of history class — would pity them and give them money instead.

That people actually sat around and watched these suicides defies comprehension.

The audience finds that Hanshiro is not what he seems and shows the feudal lord and house what real honor looks like. There is also a lovely little thematic element where the only thing that can stop Hanshiro is the firing of bullets at him.

A curious and metaphorical action, suggesting that once firearms were present in fights, there was no longer the honor of the Bushido.

The most intriguing part of the movie is the cover up of the incident at the end, but also the overbearing image of the “spirit Bushido”. The actual armor itself is grasped by Hanshiro in battle as he drags it along. Then at the end, it is once again replaced when Hanshiro dies with viciousness and honor.

There is a creepiness to the movie that I can’t quite put my finger on — a feeling that many of Masaki Kobyashi’s film’s had. What were left with is a maddening tale of hypocrisy when dealing with an honor code and anti-totalitarianism story that even George Orwell probably liked.

What visuals...

-Collin