Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai
In feudal Japan
impoverished ronin (masterless samurai) Hanshiro (Ebizô
Ichikawa) calls at the noble House
of Ii and requests to commit seppuku (formal ritual suicide by disembowelment) in
their courtyard with the assistance of the family’s three best samurai.
Assuming he’s bluffing, a
beggar looking for a handout, the proud House retainer Kageyu (Kôji Yakusho) tries to dissuade Hanshiro. As they wait for the samurai to
assemble, he recounts the tale of the last down-on-his-luck samurai who tried
to scam the family, a young man named Motome (Eita) who it’s revealed had sold his swords in order to
provide for his sick wife and child.
Exposed as a conman, and to serve as a warning to other ronin, Motome is
forced by the House samurai to commit slow, agonising suicide with the bamboo
practice swords he carries.
Hanshiro is not to be
dissuaded however and, as they wait for the absent samurai to arrive, he
reveals his own tale of woe, revealing a closer bond than suspected to the
luckless Motome. Too late, Kageyu
comes to realise that Hanshiro has set in motion an elaborate game of revenge…
Some films shouldn’t be
remade and if you can’t wait to see what a pig’s arse Len Wiseman’s made of Total
Recall, check out Hara-Kiri:
Death of a Samurai, Takashi Miike’s
melancholic, blandly bloodless remake of Masaki Kobayashi’s blistering 1962
film Harakiri, which
narrowly missed out on 1963’s Palmes d’Or, losing to Visconti’s The Leopard,
winning the Jury prize instead. Never the subtlest of directors (Ichi
the Killer and Visitor Q anyone?), the prolific Miike’s take on the tale is
surprisingly subdued, flabby even, getting bogged down on an overlong, almost
comically doom-laden, melodramatic flashback that makes up the central third of
the film, laying bare Motome’s relationship with Hanshiro and the younger man’s
descent into destitution. The
actors try hard, at least Yakusho and Ichikawa do, Eita’s acting is reminiscent
of an escapee from Caligari’s cabinet, but ultimately their efforts are
redundant.
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai lacks not only the subtlety of Kobayashi’s
original film but the frustration and rage of his vision. Harakiri was a raw, angry film, intent on deconstructing the myths and values of
Japan’s samurai culture and its notions of honour. Miikes’ ponderous Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai is almost a celebration of them. The only possible excuse for remaking a
piece of cinema as good as the original was is if you think you can add
something, improve it, filter it through your modern consciousness and make it
more relevant to today. Miike
singularly fails in this respect; not only does he not add anything, he
detracts. The original was a howl
of rage and dissent which also sounded the samurai’s death knell; it’s telling
that in the original that new-fangled symbol of modernity and industrialisation
– the gun – played a pivotal part.
Miike’s more interested in staging a Kill Bill-style 3D climax that’s messily shot and devoid of
tension, in sharp contrast to the breath-taking, exhilaration of the original’s
climactic battle.
Do yourself a favour; seek
out the original.
David Watson
Directed by:
Written by:
Produced by:
Starring:
Genre:
Language:
Japanese
Runtime:
2 hours 6 minutes
Certificate:
15
UK Cinema Release Date:
Friday 20th April 2012
Rating:
2/5
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