Harakiri (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray)
The world has never understood why the Japanese prefer death to dishonor! Winner of Prix Special du Jury at Cannes 1963 provides the answer!!
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Blu-ray Details
- Rated: Not Rated
- Run Time: 2 hours, 13 minutes
- Video: Black & White
- Encoding: Region 1 (USA & Canada)
- Released: October 4, 2011
- Originally Released: 1962
- Label: Criterion Collection
Performers, Cast and Crew:
Starring | Tatsuya Nakadai | |
Performer: | RentarĂ´ Mikuni, Akira Ishihama, Yoshio Inaba & Shima Iwashita | |
Directed by | Masaki Kobayashi | |
Screenwriting by | Shinobu Hashimoto | |
Story by | Yasuhiko Takiguchi | |
Director of Photography: | Yoshio Miyajima |
Major Awards:
Cannes 1963 -
Jury Prize: Not Applicable
Entertainment Reviews:
even if Kobayashi's first period film is an exemplary tale speaking as much to our own times as to Japan's feudal era, it is also a ripping yarn, keeping the viewer gripped with its jigsaw structure and intense performances.
Full Review
Projected Figures
A masterful chess game, filled with many carefully constructed moves, each arranged to fit in a particular place. It's glorious to behold.
Full Review
Combustible Celluloid
The 1962 single masterpiece uses ploys of the written word in picturing the past and/or far away to criticize the present.
Full Review
ReelTalk Movie Reviews
The film has a steady, hypnotic momentum; the director, Masaki Kobayashi, wrings as much drama out of facial twitches as he does out of sword fights.
Full Review
New Yorker
Rating: 4/4 --
It would be wrong for me to reveal the details of the story Tsugumo tells. What I can say is that it is heartbreaking.
Full Review
RogerEbert.com
Both a thrilling character piece and a scathing take down of authority, Harakiri is a tour-de-force and a compelling look into the facade of institutions.
Full Review
The Movie Sleuth
Product Description:
Set in 17th-century Japan, director Makaki Kobayahi's HARAKIRI stars Tatsuya Nakadai (RAN) as masterless samurai Hanshiro Tsugumo. Structured in a series of flashbacks, the film opens in a period of serenity that has brought about a consolidation of power in Japan, resulting in the release of many samurai from their feudal obligations. These men--Hanshiro included--are in desperate straits, struggling to avoid poverty and starvation. According to their code, they must appear at clan estates and offer to commit seppuku, or ritual disembowelment, and often the clan retainer will offer them work or alms. When Hanshiro arrives at such an estate, the chief retainer Kageyu Saito (Rentaro Mikuni) tells him a cautionary tale about the fate of samurai Motome Chijiiwa (Akira Ishihama), who was forced to commit seppuku with a dull bamboo sword as punishment for dishonoring the samurai code. Hanshiro requests that the clan's three best swordsmen act as his seconds for his act of seppuku, but they are nowhere to be found. He then reveals himself as the father-in-law of the tragic Motome and begins to exact his revenge. Arguably Kobayashi's masterpiece, this savage attack on the hypocrisy, cowardice, cruelty, and ultimate emptiness of the institution of the samurai warrior features one of Nakadai's greatest performances as the disturbingly intense swordsman.
Product Info
- Sales Rank: 71,144
- UPC: 715515087513
- Shipping Weight: 0.28/lbs (approx)
- International Shipping: 1 item