Full Movie Reviews
Rating of
3.5/4
Deromanticizing Samurai Honour
cacb3995 - wrote on 09/14/2018
Lots have been said, written, sung, played and put to film about the Samurai mythos. In all contemporary works regarding these mythical warriors there is a common word that keeps popping up: honour. Samurai are presented as honourable soldiers that hold this principle in the highest of esteems. Yet, much like every other act of representation of groups of people or phenomenae of centuries gone by, it comes with a good deal of a romantization. The 1962 film “Harakiri”, directed by Masaki Kobayashi, questions this ideal of the samurai’s code of honour, and the result is an unforgettable jidaigeki that very well deserves to be held among the greatest achievements in japanese film history.
Set in the Edo period, the film tells the story of ronin Tsugumo Hanshiro (Tatsuya Nakadai), …
