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Harakiri contains a "highly realistic" fight scene, according to an expert. Directed by Masaki Kobayashi, the 1962 Japanese jidaigeki film follows a rnin who requests to perform seppuku, also called harakiri, at a feudal lord's manor and uses the moment to recount the circumstances that led him to seek death in front of an audience of samurai, set between 1619 and 1630 during the Edo period under the Tokugawa shogunate. The film's cast includes Tatsuya Nakadai, Rentar Mikuni, Shima Iwashita, Tetsur Tamba, Ichir Nakatani, Kei Sat, and Yoshio Inaba.

In an Insider video, a martial arts and katana instructor, Seki Nobuhide Sensei, rated the portrayal of samurai battles in movies and TV shows, including the scene in Harakiri in which the protagonist battles multiple opponents at once. Watch the portion of the video below, starting at the 20:36 minute mark:

Seki Nobuhide Sensei praised the scene's realism, highlighting the protagonist's strategic movements to...

Graduating as Ozu’s assistant with his debut feature-length at Shochiku in 1960, Masahiro Shinoda (b. 1931) saw the dawn of the Japanese New Wave and rose to prominence alongside the likes of Nagisa Oshima, Yasuzo Masumura, Koreyoshi Kurahara, and Shohei Imamura among a whole host of others. Though he would spend most of his career reinterpreting and reimagining whole genres including the yakuza film and jidaigeki, the films across his four-decade-long career would predominantly be united by a re-examination of Japanese historical, societal, and national identity, complete with a focus on alienation, mythologies, and religious and moral turmoil. Frequently coupled with composer Toru Takemitsu, cinematographers Masao Kosugi and Tatsuo Suzuki, and actress Shima Iwashita (whom he would go on to marry), Shinoda’s films grapple with man’s perturbing darkness and its effect on the personal and national conscience. Like most of his Nūberu Bāgu compatriots, Shinoda frequently negated cinematic and narrative traditions,...

Few filmmakers have captured raw family dynamics in motion as wonderfully as Yasujiro Ozu. Throughout his career, he solidified himself as a simplistic yet superb storyteller with an appealing aesthetic style while also capturing the societal climate of Japan at the time. In the later years of his career, with the jump from black-and-white to color, Ozu primarily did reimaginings of his previous features, some straight-up remade. The most obvious example is his gem “Floating Weeds,” a remake of his earlier work “A Story of Floating Weeds.” Yet even with the reinstating of familiar elements in his later projects, he still added unique aspects to them while having said films stand on their own merits. As a perfect example, familiarity and freshness are present in his beautiful swan song “An Autumn Afternoon.”

This would be Yasujiro Ozu’s final film which would be released in late 1962. A year later, he passed away on December 12th,...

Masahiro Shinoda’s 1969 screen adaptation of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s 1721 puppet play “The Love Suicides at Amijima” is a heavily stylized melodrama set in 18th-century Japan. As a director associated with the Japanese New Wave, Shinoda introduces some experimental touches to the film but for the most part “Double Suicide” is a relatively faithful adaptation of the classic source material.

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Married paper mill owner Jihei (Kichiemon Nakamura) is madly in love with the beautiful courtesan Koharu (Shima Iwashita) and has promised to free her from her contract with the brothel she is forced to work at. However, he lacks the financial means to do so and in their desperation, the two decide to commit suicide together. Their lives are further complicated when Jihei’s brother, Magoemon (Yusuke Takita), shows up at Koharu’s brothel disguised as a samurai and learns of her and Jihei’s plans.

Editor’s Note: This article is presented in partnership with FilmStruck. Developed and managed by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in collaboration with the Criterion Collection, FilmStruck features the largest streaming library of contemporary and classic arthouse, indie, foreign and cult films as well as extensive bonus content, filmmaker interviews and rare footage. Learn more here.

Masahiro Shinoda has never cracked the top tier of Japanese auteurs and he’s never enjoyed the fame of Akira Kurosawa, the critical reverence of Yasujiro Ozu, or the historical significance of Kenji Mizoguchi, but time has revealed the filmmaker to be one of the most vital directors of the 20th century. From the frenetic pop energy of the Japanese New Wave to the more meditative, historically focused features that became de rigueur towards the turn of the millennium, the versatile Shinoda was a mainstay in his country’s national cinema from his wild debut...

The Criterion Collection refurbishes its previous release of Yasujiro Ozu’s 1962 swan song, An Autumn Afternoon for a new digital restoration Blu-ray transfer. The auteur, often described as the ‘most Japanese’ of directors, is a prominent cinematic figure (which explains his heavy presence in Criterion’s vault), ranking alongside the likes of Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. Yet Ozu was a much more subtle, even methodical filmmaker in comparison, reveling in the depiction of everyday life acted out amongst traditional (some would say banal) activities, meant to reflect the changing cultural landscapes that often place its inhabitants at uncomfortable odds.

An aging widower, Shuhei Hiroyama (Chishu Ryu) lives with daughter Michiko (Shima Iwashita) and a younger son. Michiko tends to her father and brother, and it seems a happy existence for all, but now at the age of twenty-four, outsiders are beginning to question why her father hasn’t arranged for her to be married.

Kim Ki-Duk’s latest cauldron of discomfort, Moebius, landed at the 70th Venice International Film Festival and received a limited theatrical release in New York shortly before being granted a chance to snarl across VOD. Certainly a hard sell, a veritable silent orchestra of sexual, incestuous tinged depravity, a more pronounced platform and less congested market may have given the film a chance to reach the infamous heights of classic Nagisa Oshima titles as it plays like the rather violent cousin of something like In the Realm of the Senses (1976). But despite our increasing desensitization, auteur theorists may one day rejoice in this post-hump Arirang (2011) howl of disgusting delight from the provocateur.

It’s easy to deride Ki-duk for his hyperbolized and excessive depiction of violence and sex, and arguably he outdoes himself with his latest theatrical release, Moebius, so named for the continuous strip in reference to a family...

Freudian Slip: Ki-duk Gets to the Greek

South Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk outdoes himself with his latest theatrical release, Moebius, so named for the continuous strip in reference to a family suffering from tragicomic sexual perversities of mythological proportion. Perhaps a natural modernization of Socrates’ Oedipus, it instead feels like Ki-duk is trying to one-up Von Trier’s Antichrist (2009), his triangle of victims suffering in near silent pantomime. It’s this absence of language, as not a line of dialogue exists, (though verbal communication is sometimes shown as transpiring, though out of logical auditory range), that not only makes this lurid material a bit more palatable but also fashions the film into a perverse kind of visual poetry. Those turned off by the extreme sex and violence peppered throughout his 2013 Golden Lion winner, Pieta, won’t be won over by Ki-duk with this oddity, but it’s a ballet of...

Yasujiro Ozu's last film, now rereleased, is superbly composed family drama about a father and daughter both intent on sacrificing their own happiness for each other

Yasujiro Ozu's exquisitely tender and sad final movie, An Autumn Afternoon, from 1962 now rereleased is filmed in soft colour. The critic must hesitate before invoking the cliche "watercolour", although the final scenes are likely to be watched through a swimmy blur of tears. Ozu's great repertory player Chishu Ryu plays Shuhei, a gentle and reticent widower, who is effectively being looked after by his beautiful, unmarried daughter, Michiko (Shima Iwashita). Michiko's somewhat dopey younger brother also lives at home, expecting, like his dad, to be waited upon hand and foot, while an older brother has married and gone away. Shuhei goes to a school reunion with his office chums, where the appearance of an old teacher shocks him: this ageing schoolmaster has become a somewhat embarrassing drunk,...

Chicago – I’m always amazed when smart people tell me they don’t see foreign films. The fact is that our foreign film market is worse than it’s ever been with fewer and fewer works from other countries actually making an impact in this one. I see dozens of foreign films a year and I’m still just chipping at the iceberg of the international film scene. One of the countries with the most vibrant filmmaking histories is Japan and for proof that they’ve been making intriguing dramas for decades now look no further than the Criterion edition of “Harakiri,” a striking drama that won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and has recently been released on Blu-ray for the first time.

Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0

Without the Criterion Collection, I wonder if “Harakiri” would even be on DVD, much less Blu-ray. Some of their titles — “Carlos,...

Harakiri Directed by: Masaki Kobayashi Written by: Shinobu Hashimoto Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Rentaro Mikuni, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri is a sort of anti-samurai film that explores honour and moral decency within the strict adherence to a centuries old code. Kobayahsi's criticisms hurled towards this authoritative body is just as relevant now as it was in Edo period Japan. The result is a film that plays with the audience as it peels back the layers, strategically revealing plot revelations that tantalize the audience, creating a truly engrossing cinematic experience. Hanshiro Tsugumo, a Ronin Samurai, enters the estate of the Lyi Clan in search of a courtyard to perform Harakiri; an act of ritual suicide through disembowelment. Within the Bushido code, it's used both as punishment or voluntarily by a samurai looking to die with honour. In this case, Hanshiro is out of work due to the current...

Rank the week of October 4th’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Fast Five

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #803

Win Percentage: 57%

Times Ranked: 5781

Top-20 Rankings: 40

Directed By: Justin Lin

Starring: Dwayne Johnson • Vin Diesel • Paul Walker • Jordana Brewster • Elsa Pataky

Genres: Action • Action Thriller • Chase Movie • Crime • Drama • Thriller

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Scream 4

(Blu-ray & DVD | R | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #1420

Win Percentage: 49%

Times Ranked: 6843

Top-20 Rankings: 26

Directed By: Wes Craven

Starring: Alison Brie • Neve Campbell • David Arquette • Hayden Panettiere • Courteney Cox

Genres: Horror • Mystery • Slasher Film • Thriller

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Submarine

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2010)

Flickchart Ranking: #2772

Win Percentage: 60%

Times Ranked: 1079

Top-20 Rankings: 10

Directed By: Richard Ayoade

Starring: Craig Roberts • Yasmin Paige • Sally Hawkins • Paddy Considine • Noah Taylor

Genres: Comedy Drama • Coming-of-Age • Drama

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Classics & Re-releases Salo, Or The 120 Days Of Sodom

(Criterion Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 1976)

Flickchart Ranking: #4386

Win Percentage: 43%

Times Ranked:...

• I picked up on something of David Fincher in The Social Network I hadn't noticed before—his appreciation for script's which split his protagonists into dopplegangers. In this film, the character of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is cast not just as Jesse Eisenberg (in a strong, concrete-like performance of moving singularity) as Zuckerberg, but as Andrew Garfield's sweet best friend, Justin Timberlake's opportunistic nerd-playboy, Rooney Mara's irritated ex-girlfriend, and more. The film's structure is likewise split across recollections from two different depositions, and is further underlined by having a set of twins be major characters (actually one actor duplicated via special effects!), the references to the two-men crew team, etc. Thinking back on how Benjamin Button was split across the characters he encounters across different time periods, each reflecting versions of himself and his thinking, Zodiac's obsession being shared between the three major characters and the anonymous killer,...

AnimEigo has released a new Region 1 DVD of Hideo Gosha's Onimasa - A Japanese Godfather (Kiryûin Hanako no shôgai). The English title of Gosha's film, which was released in 1982 by Toei Studios, is an obvious attempt to invoke a certain set of works by Francis Ford Coppola. Onimasa has virtually nothing in common with those Mafia masterpieces. In truth, the film is a bloody epic drama that laces its story of an early 20th century Yakuza leader with a heavy dose of contemporary sleaze.

Tatsuya Nakadai plays Masagoro Kiryuin (aka Onimasa), who is the egotistical head of a small-time Yakuza gang. Onimasa's chivalrous self-image is contradicted by his criminal activities, and his desire to sleep with most any woman who isn't his wife (Shima Iwashita). One fateful day, Onimasa pays a visit to the Shirai home in order to adopt some children. He picks Hiraku and his sister Matsue...

Looks like Animeigo is going to be releasing Hideo Gosha's 1982 yakuza drama Onimasa on R1 DVD next year. No word yet on what special features might be available (and their website seems to be down as of this writing), but all you really need to know is that the film was directed by Gosha, stars Tatsuya Nakadai as a gangster who chooses justice over loyalty to his bosses (one of whom is played by Tetsuro Tamba) and it ends with a massive, bloody battle. The film also stars Shima Iwashita and Masako Natsume and was the official Japanese entry for the best foreign language film Academy Award that year.