Poverty-stricken samurai Hanshiro is seeking an honorable end. He requests to commit hara-kiri in a feudal lord’s courtyard. Trying to dismiss his wish, the lord recounts a similar plea from a young samurai years ago. But soon he will realise that Hanshiro’s request is different from what it seems.

Following the explosive 13 Assassins, the iconoclastic Takashi Miike revisited the samurai genre with this underrated remake of the 1962 classic Harakiri. Scored by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto, Death of a Samurai is a elegant reckoning with notions of sacrifice and duty in the 17th century.