When a Samurai Seek an Honorable End in Hara-kiri Way

Takashi Miike’s “Thirteen Assassins” remake has widely considered as one of Japan’s best films of 2010, therefore, the director is back with another effort to remake another classic in Japan’s movie history. This time, Miike’s target is the 1963 Cannes Film Festival’s Special Jury Award winner “Harakiri” (Japanese: Seppuku) directed by acclaimed filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi. Miike’s new film originally titled “Ichimei” in Japan language that loosely translated as “A Life”, a complete contradictory to the international release title “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai”, right? The 1962 film itself was actually an adaptation of “Ibun rônin-ki” novel written by Yasuhiko Takiguchi about an out of work samurai who wants to commit seppuku (the "honorable" ex-warrior suicide by ritual disembowelment) in the house of a Lord, but there, he learns of the fate of his son-in-law, a young samurai who sought work at the house but was instead barbarically forced to commit traditional harakiri in an excruciating manner. It sounds more like an intimist revenge drama, than a spectacular & epic movie like in “Thirteen Assassins” scale.
But the original film itself, despite its samurai genre categorization, wasn’t an action film at all. It is an intelligent anti-samurai film that's primary concern is exposing much of the honor surrounding them and their times has been falsified. Other thing that makes it so great is its simplicity and its intensity. Anyone could understand this movie without being a foreign film buff or scholar of Japanese history.In Kobayashi’s hands, “Harakiri” also became a criticism of the then current Japanese society that used their samurai history as its subject, but most of the points it makes are truer of the east and west today, as the idea of working for one company for life has all but disappeared. The film explores many issues including conflicting obligations, adherence to ritual and tradition, superficial honor vs. true honor, political corruption, presented truth vs. actual truth, and loyalty to the profession vs. loyalty to the family. It looks at how everyone clings to perceived rank even when it is no longer the case, considers how much one should stray from their values at a time when everyone else has strayed from theirs, and illustrates how a more complete truth can totally change the meaning of a true story. That’s why it must be a very difficult challenge for Takashi Miike to produce a remake that can stand close to the integrity of the original. From its Cannes presentation back in May 2011, “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai” received pretty mixed reviews since people were expecting another Miike’s battle frenzy samurai film, while this new one is more of a down-to-earth drama. And instead of constructing the labyrinthine narrative like a mystery (as Kobayashi’s version excellently accomplishes), Miike proposes the entire flashback sequence as a wholesale melodrama. This decision decisively brings the entire momentum of his film to a sudden halt. But as revealed by the trailer, the film indeed offers dazzling visuals – some of them are directly coming from the 1962 film – and, well, it is pretty nice to see Miike taking a more reflective tone than usual.Edo (ancient Tokyo), Japan, 1634. In the early years of the Tokugawa period, peace has resulted in unemployment and poverty among the samurai class, with many masterless samurai (aka ronin) driven to threaten ritual hara-kiri in the hope they'll be offered money or a job instead. A typical ronin, Tsugomo Hanshiro (Ichikawa Ebizo), arrives at the House of Iyi and requests permission to perform ritual suicide in the courtyard, as he can no longer bear the shame of poverty. Thinking he's just another "suicide bluffer", Saito Kageyu (Yakusho Koji), chief retainer at the House, tries to dissuade Tsugomo by recounting the story of a younger ronin who made the same request recently. Aged about 20, Chijiiwa Motome (Eita) had had his bluff called by Iyi squire Omodaka Hikokuro (Aoki Munetaka), who had convinced Saito that it was time to set an example. Chijiiwa had hoped to get some money for his sick wife Miho (Mitsushima Hikari) and baby son, but when his bluff was called it was revealed he had already sold his swords and had only a cheap bamboo one. Nevertheless, Omodaka had still forced him to commit hara-kiri in a particularly grisly way with the blunt instrument. After hearing the story, Tsugomo specially requests that Omodaka and two other Iyi samurai should be his seconds during his hara-kiri, but all three are coincidentally absent without leave that day. Suspicious, Saito asks him why, and Tsugomo then tells Saito his own story. It begins some 15 years earlier, when fellow samurai Chijiiwa Jinnai (Nakamura Baijaku), on his deathbed, asked Tsugomo to take care of his young son Motome, who grew up to become his son-in-law.


Sources: Filmbiz – Photos courtesy of Shochiku