Peace in 17th-century Japan causes the Shogunate's breakup of warrior clans, throwing thousands of samurai out of work and into poverty. An honorable end to such fate under the samurai code is ritual suicide, or hara-kiri (self-inflicted disembowelment). An elder warrior, Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai) seeks admittance to the house of a feudal lord to commit the act. There, he learns of the fate of his son-in-law, a young samurai who sought work at the house but was instead barbarically forced to commit traditional hara-kiri in an excruciating manner with a dull bamboo blade. In flashbacks the samurai tells the tragic story of his son-in-law, and how he was forced to sell his real sword to support his sick wife and child. Tsugumo thus sets in motion a tense showdown of revenge against the house.
What a Japanese masterpiece. Excellent camera movement in this film! This and RASHOMON are probably my all-time favorite Japanese movies. The only real problems I had with this film were the pacing (I saw a couple of places I felt could have been sped up or cut out) and the sword fighting scenes weren't well done. It seemed as if Tatsuya Nakadai had never held a sword before in his life. I'm not expecting this guy to be a full blown master in the "exquisite art of the samurai sword" (as Beatrix Kiddo likes to refer to it), but at least let me try to believe you're a samurai. That's one thing I always respected about actors such as Toshirô Mifune, Shintarô Katsu (from the ZATOICHI series), and Tomisaburo Wakayama (from the LONE WOLF AND CUB series), they may not have much practice or experience with the sword, but they at least come off on screen as being master's with the blade. However, other than those 2 complaints, I thought the film was fantastic.
