Rating of
3.5/4
Deromanticizing Samurai Honour
cacb3995 - wrote on 09/14/18
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), a lordless samurai who arrives at the estate of the li clan with the request of them letting him commit harakiri on their ground. At the time it was common for ronin to make such requests in order to receive gold from the clans or even a job to deter them from doing this. Suspecting that this might be the case, senior counselor Saito Kageyu (Rentaro Mikuni) tells him the story of another ronin that recently came to the li clan with the same request. Tsugumu, however, sticks to his resolve of commiting harakiri, claiming that he has “every intention of dying”. Little do the members of the li clan know, that Tsugumu has come with a hidden agenda of his own.
https://breakingthefourthwallsite.wordpress.com/2018/09/14/harakiri-deromanticizing-samurai-honour/
