Harakiri (1962) Seppuku (original title)

Director:

Masaki Kobayashi

Writers:

Shinobu Hashimoto (screenplay)
Yasuhiko Takiguchi (novel) ...
(more)

Release Date:

4 August 1964 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

An elder ronin samurai arrives at a feudal lord's home and requests an honorable place to commit suicide. But when the ronin inquires about a younger samurai who arrived before him things take an unexpected turn.

Plot Keywords:

Samurai | Hara Kiri | Ronin | Suicide | Poverty

Awards:

8 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Tatsuya Nakadai	...	Hanshiro Tsugumo
Akira Ishihama	...	Motome Chijiiwa
Shima Iwashita	...	Miho Tsugumo
Tetsurô Tanba	...	Hikokuro Omodaka
Masao Mishima	...	Tango Inaba
Ichirô Nakatani	...	Hayato Yazaki
Kei Satô	...	Masakazu
Yoshio Inaba	...	Jinai Chijiiwa
Hisashi Igawa	...	Retainer
Tôru Takeuchi	...	Retainer
Yoshirô Aoki	...	Umenosuke Kawabe
Tatsuo Matsumura
Akiji Kobayashi
Kôichi Hayashi
Ryûtarô Gomi		(as Katsuo Gomi)
Jô Azumi	...	Ichiro Shimmen
Nakajirô Tomita
Shichisaburô Amatsu	...	Retainer
Kenzô Tanaka
Shin Nakahara
Tsuneo Ikeda
Minoru Miyagi
Takaaki Kadota
Ichirô Yamamoto
Gen Takasugi
Satoshi Nishida
Tetsurô Komiyama
Shûichirô Narita
Noboru Kasuga
Shinpachi Kura
Kenji Hayashi
Shôtarô Hayashi
Shimezô Kataoka
Fumiya Ozawa
Kônosuke Takemoto
Rentarô Mikuni	...	Kageyu Saito

Directed by
Masaki Kobayashi

Writing credits
Shinobu Hashimoto		(screenplay)
Yasuhiko Takiguchi		(novel "Ibun rônin ki")
Yasuhiko Takiguchi

Produced by
Tatsuo Hosoya	....	producer
Gin'ichi Kishimoto	....	assistant producer
Makoto Naitô	....	development producer
Tsugio Saitô	....	assistant producer

Original Music by
Tôru Takemitsu

Cinematography by
Yoshio Miyajima

Film Editing by
Hisashi Sagara

Art Direction by
Junpei Oosumi
Shigemasa Toda

Set Decoration by
Zenichi Tajiri

Costume Design by
Mitsuzô Ueda

Makeup Department
Gyôuemon Kimura	....	key hair stylist
Yoshiko Kimura	....	hair stylist

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Kôji Niwa	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Shigeru Fujita	....	assistant sound
Hideo Nishizaki	....	sound

Stunts
Hideki Kato	....	fight choreographer

Camera and Electrical Department
Shôjirô Kamohara	....	gaffer
Takao Ohara	....	still photographer
Tamotsu Okutani	....	assistant camera
Shigeyuki Sekine	....	assistant photographer

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Chôkan Kawamura	....	costume researcher
Shigenosuke Sumida	....	costume researcher

Editorial Department
Junpei Segashira	....	assistant editor
Sofu Teshigahara	....	titles

Other crew
Kaneshige Inokuma	....	historical researcher
Ryôzô Nakamura	....	equipment

Production Companies

• Shôchiku Eiga

Distributors

• Shôchiku Eiga (1962) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Signal International (1964) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Criterion Collection, The (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1975) (USA) (TV) (network premiere)
• Japanski Sinemaskop (1964) (Yugoslavia) (theatrical)
• Svensk Filmindustri (SF) (1965) (Sweden) (theatrical)
• Tempo Films (1963) (Canada) (theatrical)
• Criterion Collection, The (2011) (USA) (DVD)
• Eureka Entertainment (2011) (UK) (DVD) (Blu-ray)
• Raro Video (2005) (Italy) (DVD) (with Sanbiki no samurai)

Also Known As:

"Seppuku" - Japan (original title)

Runtime:

133 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:X | France:U | Canada:PG (Ontario) | UK:15 (DVD rating) | USA:Not Rated | Germany:16 (re-rating) | West Germany:18 (cut version)

Company:

Shôchiku Eiga

Trivia:

Seppuku and harakiri (the US working title) both mean to commit ritual suicide in Japanese. However, seppuku is the formal term, derived from the kanji characters for "hara" (belly) and "kiri" (cut); harakiri is the cruder, less polite term for this act.

Quotes:

Kageyu Saito:The ronin from Hiroshima, Hanshiro Tsugumo, committed hara kiri. All our own men died of illness. The house of Iyi has no retainers who could be felled or wounded by some half-starved ronin.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Through the Mist (2009)

Samurai Genre is Used to Exposively Indict Japanese Politics and Culture

I saw Harakiri (Seppuku) in a new 35 mm print at NYC's Film Forum. This is a brilliant use of a narrow period genre to explosively indict politics and culture. Writers Shinobu Hashimoto and Yasuhiko Takiguchi surely must have been as inspired by "The Count of Monte Cristo," Ambrose Bierce and Howard Hawks' Westerns as much as by samurai literature and movies.

The film begins deceptively as a story within a story, seemingly providing a traditional example of upholding samurai honor, such as in the conventional, oft-retold tale of "The 47 Ronin." The context is set at a time when the central government, the shogunate, is supplanting local clans and arbitrarily unemploying thousands of people, notably their samurai, forcing them into the mercenary mode of ronin at best and begging for food at worse. But the parallels to the 20th century are made repeatedly explicit as the samurai who comes to this clan seeking help is from Hiroshima.

Very gradually we get further insight on the tale within a tale, as we see more flashbacks within flashbacks into what each character has been doing before these confrontations and we get uneasy inklings that the moral of the story may not be what it appears at first and the stakes get higher and higher with almost unbearable tension.

It is almost halfway through the film until we see a female and we suddenly see an alternative model of masculinity, where a priority is put on family, support, education and creative productivity. In comparison to the macho opening relationships, with their emphasis on formal militaristic loyalty to a hierarchy, a loving husband and father is practically a metrosexual. Seeing the same stalwart samurai making casual goo goo sounds to his grandbaby puts the earlier, ritualized scenes in sharp relief, particularly the recurring image of the clan's armor which seems less and less imposing and is finally destroyed as an empty symbol.

The psychological tension in the confrontations in the last third of the film is more excruciating than the actual violence. Even when we thought we already knew the outcome from the flashbacks, the layers of perception of relationships and personalities are agonizingly peeled away with each thrust of a sword to reveal the depths of the horrifying hypocrisy of the political and social structure. And those are just the overwhelming cultural resonances that a 21st century American can glean. Like "Downfall (Der Untergang)," it reveals the inhumane mentality that led to World War II.

The repeating motif of long walks then confrontations down empty corridors emphasizes the stultifying bureaucratic maze that entraps the characters. The revenge motifs are accented by startlingly beautiful cinematography that recalls traditional Japanese art, including drops of blood like first snow flakes then a waterfall.

The over all effect of this masterpiece is emotionally draining.