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Akira Ishihama, Hisashi Igawa, Ichirô Nakaya

Winner of the Cannes Special Jury Prize, Masaki Kobayashi's drama centers on samurai Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai). A new political climate finds the once-powerful samurais wandering the country ...( read more  read more... )begging estate owners to allow them to commit suicide on their property, when what they really want is a handout. Hanshiro arrives at a lavish manor and asks to commit hara-kiri on the grounds, but the vengeful warrior is harboring a secret.

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97% liked it

4,233 ratings

Unrated, 133 min.

Directed by: Masaki Kobayashi

Release Date: August 4, 1964

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DVD Release Date: August 23, 2005

Stats: 310 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (310)

  • jplong39
    January 12, 2009
    jplong39
    One of the most famous Japanese films ever made, Hara-kiri (Seppuku is the more accurate title) is Masaki Kobayashi's crowning achievement: a searing indictment of "Big Government" existing only for itself. As timely today as it was 46 yrs ago, Seppuku tells the tale of Hanshiro ...( read more)Tsugumo, played by Tatsuya Nakadai in his most famous role, a Ronin struggling to survive in a country ravaged by unemployment. Thousands of Ronin roam the streets unable to find work because their various clans have been disbanded and government has been centralized. The account of one of these desperate Ronin seeking to commit seppuku in one of the royal coutyards spreads like wildfire through the land: the clan of the courtyard is so impressed with his dedication that they hire him as a retainer. Thus Ronin from all over are knocking on doors threatening seppuku unless given employment or money.

    Kobayashi's masterpiece tells the tale of the retainers of the House of Lord Iyi, how they harshly deal with the numerous Ronin, and of Tsugumo, who comes to force the retainers of the House to face the consequences of their cruelty.

    Nakadai is at his finest moment, playing a world-weary former warrior two decades his senior. Trained as a stage actor, Nakadai puts in an incredibly subtle and carefully nuanced performance that made this film legendary.

    Kobayashi, Japan's leading "protest" director and famous for his monumental "Human Condition" series, also starring Nakadai, directs this, his magnum opus, with a sure steady hand...deliberately paced and ending with a tremendous emotional punch.

    One of the great ones and not to be missed.
  • Saxia
    November 29, 2008
    Saxia
    I've been waiting a long time to watch this movie, but now I've finally seen it!
    This movie is different from other samurai movies, because it criticizes the samurai code; Bushido, and doesn't romanticize it.

    Nakadai is as wonderful as ever with his colorful range of expression...( read more)s, nobody else can portray as much intensity as he does.

    Masaki Kobayashi (the director) definitely is a Master of Cinema!
  • binky013
    September 24, 2007
    binky013
    Seppuku

    I don't know if this is the best samurai project ever brought to screen, but I'm willing to bet that it is right up there. Actually billed as an anti-samurai film, this bare-bones black & white drama cuts to the core of the samurai way of life in an exa

    ...( read more)mination of the validity of the samurai code. Although the code ultimately stands up to close scrutiny, albeit unsteadily, it is finally only through revisionist manipulation that it does hold up at all. In short, the way of the samurai, or bushido, finally just survives this anti-samurai treatment, teetering upon a shaky foundation made up of lies perpetrated through sheer force of authoritarian pronouncement and will. This not only demonstrates how the myth and mystique of bushido survive, but it also gives good insight into the way those in power can turn fact into accepted self-serving fiction.

    As an aside, while watching Harakiri, Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, an American anti-western that performs a similar function of undercutting the perceived code, the collective bravado, of the gun-slinging West, kept coming to mind. That's another one I must watch again.
  • doboy1
    July 31, 2007
    doboy1
    classic
  • webalina
    June 30, 2007
    webalina
    A great example of the flaw in basing your opinion of an event on circumstantial evidence instead of the facts.
  • ElCochran90
    November 2, 2009
    ElCochran90
    "The suspicious mind conjures its own demons."

    SEPPUKU (1962)


    Director: Masaki Kobayashi
    Country: Japan
    Genre: Drama
    Length: 133 minutes

    ...( read more)corated%20images/?action=view¤t=harakirishowdown.jpg" target="_blank">Photobucket

    Masaki Kobayashi's spiritually redeeming tale of feudal authority and hypocritical corruption is widely considered not only as a masterful cinematic project and a landmark of Japanese cinema, but as the director's towering achievement as well. Resorting to a stunningly poetic cinematography, a brilliant direction, a dramatically compelling and shocking plot, and political and moral elements that, put together, form part of a whole social commentary that significantly searches for the release of the soul and the epiphany of the conscience, Seppuku achieves to reach a new level that cinema had not accomplished before. Introducing a direction style that would use the honor code of the Samurai genre set in past times, top-notch casts, a darker overall atmosphere and brutal conclusions, Kobayashi started with Seppuku an audacious form of filmmaking that sought for justice in unfair situations and a general public's reaction towards the abuse of authority and the unjust empowerment of man, contrasting turbulent war times with new peace times that would start complicated life modifications in the life of the overall society. This is the first attempt of the director to employ a different narrative structure composed by facts that would lead to a single conclusion, leaving the existentialist subject matter used in the Ningen no Joken (1959-1961) trilogy behind. It may also be considered as the greatest samurai film ever directed.

    Set in 17th-century Japan during the Shogunate's breakup of warrior clans due to a newly born peace period, several thousands of samurais are thrown to a new life of unemployment and poverty. Causing many ronin to emerge, they start seeking for the most honorable way to end their lives by the ancient and violent ritual of seppuku, consisting in a disembowelment. Hanshiro Tsugumo, an elder warrior and former retainer of the Lord of Geishu until the abolition of the Geishu Clan in 1619, arrives at the gates of the official residence of Lord Iyi asking for admittance so he can perform seppuku and end his life as a worthy samurai. However, he soon finds out that his son-in-law arrived there first under the false pretense of committing seppuku with the hope of obtaining money but was forced to commit the act with a bamboo blade due to the clan's questioning about his intentions. Consequently, Tsugumo starts to plot revenge against the house, revealing the truth about the acquaintance he had with him. The film won the Jury Special Prize of the Cannes Film Festival in 1963, which tied with the film Az Pridje Kocour (1963), directed by Vojtech Jasný. Kobayashi was also nominated for a Golden Palm, which lost against Il Gattopardo (1963), directed by Luchino Visconti.

    Kobayashi's direction has finally taken a new course. Inserting cold characters, a brutal plot and an accurate historical context, Seppuku managed to appeal modern audiences in a disturbing, yet fascinating way. The film itself seems to be like a perfect painting, beautifully illustrated with Eastern imagery, extraordinary shots of vast landscapes and cloudy natural terrains, and artistic close spaces. The cinematography reaches a certain degree of human perfection, like trying to convince the world that cinema is indeed an art form. Cinematographer Yoshio Miyajima, who had previously made an astonishingly poetic work in the Ningen no Joken (1959-1961) trilogy and would later work with Kobayashi once more in the horror film Kaidan (1964), offers a complete delight to the senses, compensating the implied brutality of the feature film with heavenly visual tranquility. Talented screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto isn't exempted from contributing to the creation of one of the most majestically crafted films of all time thanks to the screenplay he elaborated with Yasuhiko Takiguchi, which is, once again, an inspirational and marvelous mix of poetic words and dialogues with the particular characteristics of a theater play.

    Seppuku is a work of art by itself, like a cinematic place where heaven and hell meet and battle an endless war of love and hatred, trust and deception, family bonds and tragic losses. The whole brilliant and truly first jaw-dropping performance of Tatsuya Nakadai portrays a cold-blooded, yet human character whose motivations have been completely destroyed. In his search for finding the most honorable ending to his life and his past duties, he inevitably has to face the hypocrisy and cruelty of the feudal authorities against his will. Irony is used as a powerful tool that would eventually lead to certain events that were predestined to happen, thus preserving eternal honor. Justice, at the expense of probably necessary sacrifices, is served once again. However, it is the own personality and the very foundations of our moral values and empathetic abilities the ones that complement the partial goodness of the society. As if hardships of life weren't enough, life itself needs a balance in a similar way the peace in Japan, which had just started, opened ways to new forms of cruelty and destiny's irony.

    The film heavily relies on flashbacks and memories that may serve as a psychological preparation for the chaotic finale and the predictable conclusion, being "predictable" a positive aspect since the main purposes of the film are strengthened. Tatsuya Nakadai represents a whole society in search for hope and a new beginning that will eventually lead to a general reconstruction of customs, ways of living and deserved peaceful times. Japan may have been represented as the mansion of the clan, and the population as the members of the clan, a population encapsulated between four walls. The typical depiction of the characters' ancestors is also added as a key element in the film, an icon that is ultimately destroyed, bringing death all along, which is ironically symbolized by three muskets carried by coward platoon, thus showing the death of the samurai era and introducing an upcoming period of constant progress and industrialization.

    Seppuku tries to avoid controversy and constitutes a complete piece of filmmaking that, nowadays, forms part of Japan's most representative forms of cinematic expression. Despite being the first true samurai film by the Japanese master, it curiously portrays the end of an era, thus transmitting the nostalgia of the dramatic quality that predominated in his films during the 50's. Resorting to the climatic ending tradition, this prime opera culminates in a well-choreographed battle scene which horror and intensity relies on how a single person bravely stands up against a plurality. Being the best film by Masaki Kobayashi, Seppuku shares the epic levels shared in his previous films and contracts them in a 133-minute art piece which violence represents life, equality, honor and ultimate redemption.

    100/100
  • g0y
    October 30, 2009
    g0y
    Kurosawa samurai films < Kobayashi
  • kunam88
    October 29, 2009
    kunam88
    and my big question raise: how come Masaki Kobayashi become the lesser known japanese director,overshadowed by Kurosawa? only by seeing this truly epic masterpiece,i already fall in love with his great cinematography skills,and brilliant storytelling. Though i never get the idea ...( read more)of Harakiri itself,but i got to admit,this is a true timeless classic epic story.and that last finale?whoa.now i know where Tarantino Kill Bill The bride vs Crazy 88 inspiration comes from..
  • gultenreiz
    October 1, 2009
    gultenreiz
    In the XVII century Japan, during Tokugawa era, samurai gradually lost their military function and, when the central government forced daymas to cut the seize of their army, unemplyed ronin (a samurai with no lord or master) became a social problem. To avoid the humiliation of po...( read more)verty, many ronin would go to the clans and ask to commit seppuku. But many didn't want samurai to commit seppuku on their property so they would just pay them to go elsewhere.
    Seppuku was a japanese ritual suicide performed by the samurai. According to the samurai code (Bushido), they rather deal with death by harakiri (stomach-cutting) then face situations in which their honor might be at risk.
    The movie begins with such ritual, when a young samurai who was hopping for money for his family announces that he will take his life, even though he is not serious and was just bluffing, he is forced to go through it. The suicide scene is just brutal, one of the reason is that he he is using a bamboo blade (he sold the real one for money).
    Later in the movie, an older samurai, comes to the same house under the pretense that he want to commit sucide too. Actually he want to revange the death of the young samurai that had tragic consequences upon his family.
    This movie is about revange and honor or so it may seem at first, I liked because is nothing idealized, in fact it is a harsh criticism on feudal system.
    "Seppuku" has the most painfuly slow start, at some point I was going to stop watching, I'm glad I didn't , there a tension that builds up culminating with a very interesting fight scene.
    I will watch it again...
  • afbuelvasp
    September 4, 2009
    afbuelvasp
    Duro filme donde se enseña que la vida no es un juego, y nada vale lo suficiente como para desprenderse de ella, solo el honor.

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Critic Reviews

September 8, 2005
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

A devastating, emotionally intense critique of the feudal system's hypocrisy and the warrior's code. full review

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  • Which actor appeared in all five of these "Samurai Cinema" classics; "Yojimbo", Samurai Rebellion", "Sword of Doom" "Sanjuro", and "Harakiri"?   Answer »
  • in the film "Harakiri" (Masaki Kobayashi, 1962), "Motome Chijiwa" must commit the act in which manner?  Answer »
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