Harakiri (1962 film)

Harakiri
Directed by	Masaki Kobayashi
Produced by	Tatsuo Hosoya
Written by	Shinobu Hashimoto Yasuhiko Takiguchi
Starring	Tatsuya Nakadai Rentaro Mikuni Shima Iwashita Akira Ishihama
Music by	Tōru Takemitsu
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release date(s)	September 16, 1962 (Japan)
Running time	135 min.
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Harakiri (Japanese: 切腹, Seppuku) (1962) is a Japanese film directed by Masaki Kobayashi. The story takes place between 1619 and 1630 during the Edo period and the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate. It tells of a ronin, Hanshiro Tsugumo, who instead of committing seppuku (better known in the West by the colloquial term harakiri) after his lord was deposed, was ordered to stay alive in order to care for his daughter and grandson as well as his son-in-law, the son of another samurai who had committed the ritual suicide.

Plot

On May 16, 1630, Hanshiro Tsugumo arrives at the estate of the Iyi clan, looking for a suitable place to commit seppuku. At the time, it is told, it was fairly common for disgraced samurai to make the same request, or threat, in the hope of receiving alms from the lord of the house. To deter him therefrom, Kageyu Saito, counselor of the clan, tells Hanshiro a warning story wherein another ronin, Motome Chijiiwa – formerly of the same clan as Hanshiro – had made the same request and the samurai retainers of the house forced him to complete the ceremony and kill himself. When Motome's sword was revealed to be a fake made of bamboo, they insisted that he disembowel himself with it, so that Motome's death was agonizingly painful. Despite this warning, Tsugumo maintains his request to commit seppuku.

While preparing for the suicide, Hanshiro Tsugumo recounts to Saito and the retainers that his lord's house was considered a threat and toppled by the shogunate, whereupon his friend, another samurai, committed seppuku and left Tsugumo to look after his son, Motome Chijiiwa. Required to protect Chijiiwa and support his own daughter Miho, Hanshiro was unable to kill himself, and instead lived in poverty and worked menial jobs to support his family. In later years Chijiwa and Miho were married and had a son, Kingo; but continued to live in poverty. When Miho and Kingo became ill and could not afford to pay a physician, Chijiiwa threatened seppuku at a lord's house. Soon after his seppuku, Miho and Kingo died from their illnesses.

Hanshiro then reveals that, before coming to the Iyi house, he tracked down three retainers of the house, Hikokuro Omodaka, Hayato Yazaki, and Umenosuke Kawabe, whom he blames for the deaths of his family, and disgraced them by cutting off their topknots. Of the three, Omodaka challenged Tsugumo to a ritual duel instead of trying to ambush him; advised Tsugumo not only that Tsugumo's hovel was inconvenient for a duel but also to write an explanation of where he was going so as not to inconvenience his landlord; and continued to attack Tsugumo even after disgraced by the breaking of his sword.

When Tsugumo finishes his account, Saito angrily orders the retainers to kill him; whereupon Tsugomo kills four and wounds eight while slowly succumbing to his wounds. When a new group of retainers arrive armed with guns, Tsugumo attempts seppuku, but is shot nevertheless. Kawabe and Yazaki are ordered to commit seppuku, while Omodaka is reported to have done so already; their deaths, and the four inflicted by Tsugumo, are reported as from "illness", lest word be transmitted that the Iyi House has lost face to a ronin.

Themes

The film presents a negative view of the emerging feudal system at the beginning of the 17th century, depicting the hypocrisy in the flimsy pretext of honor exhibited by the daimyo. At the time, harakiri was seen as a means to retain one's honor after a disgrace. The vanity of the feudal lord's counsellor Kageyu Saito is also shown: the outward appearance of honour is shown to be more important to him than real honour. He orders the retainers disgraced by Hanshiro Tsugumo to commit seppuku, and makes sure that those who were slain or had their topknots cut off by Hanshiro are written off as casualties to illness so that his house would not appear weak. An ironic commentary appears when Tsugumo is able to fight off a great many retainers with a sword, yet is helpless against three guns; a foreshadow of the Meiji restoration, wherein sword-bearing samurai were defeated by the "new" Japanese military.

Awards

The film was entered in the competition category at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. It lost the Palme d'Or to The Leopard, but received the Special Jury Award.

Main cast

• Tatsuya Nakadai - Hanshiro Tsugumo
• Rentaro Mikuni - Kageyu Saito
• Shima Iwashita - Miho Tsugumo
• Akira Ishihama - Motome Chijiiwa
• Tetsuro Tamba - Hikokuro Omodaka
• Ichiro Nakaya - Hayato Yazaki
• Yoshio Aoki - Umenosuke Kawabe

External links

• Harakiri at the Internet Movie Database
• Harakiri at AllRovi
• Criterion Collection essay by Joan Mellen
• "切腹 (Seppuku)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/1962/cl002980.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-16. 

Awards
Preceded by The Trial of Joan of Arc tied with L'eclisse	Special Jury Prize, Cannes 1963 tied with The Cassandra Cat	Succeeded by Woman in the Dunes