Love Kobayashi, Love Hara-Kiri.
1. Made sense to me, it was his shame of becoming a petty extortionist that made him do it, not the sword. Of course, sadly, for his tormentors it was just a joke and they wanted to make an example of him.
2. If he didn’t manage to kill anybody, it would have been too bleak, even if more realistic. It think the Terminator type massacre is a litttle bit cathartic after what came before.
3. You mean that stuff in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon where they fly is fake!!!???
Oh, and if you wanted more realism, I think you’ll really dig Kobayashi’s “The Human Condition”, coming soon to Criterion
1. I think it would be more than difficult to predict what someone on the other side of the world would have done in a situation like this almost four hundred years ago. I think the film offers a reasonable approximation, even if it is melodramatic, and a tad over-the-top.
2. I don’t think it was pandering. I see what you’re saying, though. But I would say his killing of four samurai, and injuring eight makes the story even bleaker, because of the way it’s swept under the rug. It’s almost as if Kobayashi, and Hashimoto make the film more of an indictment on samurai honour by doing this. They destroy the mystique of the samurai by taking away that cathartic (as ZOT! put it), and justified feeling you get at the battle scene in the film by saying none of this will ever be heard of again. Everything you just felt was a giant lie.
3. Again, it would be pretty hard to say what people really looked like fighting four hundred years ago. I would hazard a guess and say it was nothing like depicted in the film, but it looks good, and… come on it’s a movie.
I’m following this thread because I havent’t seen this film but I’ve noticed a bunch of used copies of it around my local record stores and have been thinking about getting it.
Absolutely worth it Justin. One of the greatest samurai films ever made, period.
Justin. I promise you you will not be disappointed. This is easily one of the best samurai films not made by Kurosawa.
And to add to the discussion, I don’t have any issue with the ‘problems’ mentioned here.
As for the ending, it may detract from the realism, but I see it more on a par with the ending of Taxi Driver. Yeah, it may not be exactly what would happen, but it works on an emotional level as well as an intellectual one.
Thank you all for your responses.
Harikiri is an exemplary piece of story telling for any genre, my reservations notwithstanding. I’ll reply more fully later.
It’s the drama, and the brewing tension that started from the beginning to the explosive end that made this film great. Just like boiling water in a kettle.
I understand the objection to those 3 points mentioned. However, some things to consider -
1- Shame, period. It’s not really that difficult to imagine, esp. considering the film was set 400 years ago, with samurais. Maybe too extreme by western standard, but remember World War 2, hundreds of thousand Japanese warriors chose suicide over surrender.
2 – Remember this memorable quote from the film’s main character to his adversaries –
***Tsugumo Hanshiro : “Swordsmanship, if untested in battle is like the art of swimming mastered on land.”
He was sick and famished, but he was a veteran with the skill and experience (even with a short sword), more than the “star swordsmen” of the house. In real life they are what us forward-deployed servicemen call REMF or ‘rear-echelon muthafuckers’. Kill four, wound eight more? I can dig that. He’d already lost everything and ready to die at any moment. At least he didn’t walk away into the sunset alive like John Wayne.
3 – "I don’t care what gets taught in martial art dojos, nobody in real combat adopts those absurd martial art poses.‘’
The so-called combat poses or postures, though maybe absurd is actually quite basic. It relates to every martial arm whether it’s a sword, an ax, a spear or a modern rifle. And the thing with real combat, as far as fighting stance or poses is concerned, is that everyone adapt to the environment of the fighting. Some use it, others don’t. What work in training doesn’t always apply when the shit hits the fan.
The director, Masaki Kobayashi was a veteran of WW2. He fought against extreme militarism and the authoritarian abuse of the so-called ‘warrior code’ in Japanese culture. I trust him to be the last person to pander to the myth.
Lastly, HARAKIRI is a movie, a samurai drama- so it better look like one!
Once again, Noel puts us all to shame with his intense film, and battlefield knowledge (you’re becoming my favourite person on these threads).
Interesting side note, though. The kamikaze pilots in WWII were quite often dosed with methamphetamines (which certainly contributed to their willingness to fly their planes into ships, and such). I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, anymore… I’m going to bed…
Actually, when I was younger, I went to Tae Kwon Do classes (a waste) and I learned some “absurd poses”, similar to those in the film.
They may be real, but they also do seem pretty absurd.
1. A man cannot be coerced into disemboweling himself with a bamboo blade by threatening to kill him instantly with a steel blade.
If being killed instantly brings extreme disgrace and dishonor and that code is what Kobayashi is critiquing then this device serves him well.
Singing Mason
The more excellent the film, the more demanding of it I am. With that caveat in mind—
1. A man cannot be coerced into disemboweling himself with a bamboo blade by threatening to kill him instantly with a steel blade. Nor can a man be shamed into doing it if he has already rejected the lunatic extremes of samurai honour.
2. In a film that seeks to tear apart the samurai code, it doesn’t do to pander to the Martial Art Mystique. I mean the mystique that would have that an expert swordsman, though starved, though seated, surrounded, and armed only with a short sword, can fend off twenty armed opponents, killing four and wounding eight before finally succumbing. It’s as if to say that only because of his martial prowess does his argument have any validity.
3. I don’t care what gets taught in martial art dojos, nobody in real combat adopts those absurd martial art poses.
Discuss.