HARAKIRI (1962)
IMDB
dir. Masaki Kobayashi starring: Tatsuya Nakadai
A film by the director of Kwaidan, Masaki Kobayashi. This 1962 film is a real find. A samurai film on par with any of the classic parables by Kurosawa. At the beginning of the film an ageing samurai named Tsugumo Hanshiro who has had his clan abolished by the Shogunate appears at the gates of the prosperous Iyi clan with a request that he be allowed to commit harakiri at the attendance of the Iyi men. Explaining that he has found living in poverty intolerable, he asks the lord for use of the Iyi compound for the ritual ceremony.

The lord of the Iyi attempts to dissuade him by telling the tale of a previous samurai, who, many years before, came to the estate with the very same request. It seems that it has become a practice for many wandering samurai to extort money from well off clans by threatening suicide. However, in the case of the previous samurai, the Iyi clan decided to make a lesson of him by forcing him to carry through on his threat. After hearing the excruciating story of the first samurai, Tsugumo Hanshiro responds with a tale of his own. So begins a deeply absorbing story of how fragile the samurai system of values really is when faced with true circumstances and the hypocrisy of human nature.

There is much to recommend about this film. Masaki Kobayashi's direction is masterful. Sweeping camera movements, slow dollies, emotional composition fill what is essentially a static set up (men sitting, telling each other stories) with motion. The ability of Kobayashi to establish a physical setting as a stage for moral theatre deserves to be studied. The initial building up of shots of the empty clan castle. The focus on the Iyi ancestral armour - another empty shell of the clan's so-called honour is another important concept.A duel near the end of the film is filmed on a windy plain (also featured in Kurosawa's Sanshiro Sugata), each opponent contrasted against mountains and storm clouds. That scene is a wonder of composition. 

In the central role of Tsugumo Hanshiro, Tatsuya Nakadai in a much younger role than his Lord Hidetora from Ran has three good performances in one, a proud feudal retainer, then a desperate former samurai stricken by circumstances but still hamstrung by his pride, and a vengeful storyteller come to lay the samurai code bare to its hypocrisies. His driven expressions stress the extent of his character's emotions. As he takes on all the retainers of clan Iyi at once in the final scene, his face is a torment.

The second act is a bit slow, to be sure, as the story that Tsugumo Hanshiro tells is not as much of a revelation as it is meant to be. So your mind is racing ahead to the final act. For all the wonder of the composition of the duel on the windy plains, the actual fighting is flaccid (though redeemed by the battle in the Iyi clan castle at the end). Some may not stick around after cringing through the suicide of the first warrior which occurs under excruciating circumstances and graphically shown.

The DVD by Panorama Industries (HK) suffers from a poor print and is not anamorphic. The subtitles have grammar problems but aren't totally laughable. From Poker Industries.