Plot
On May 16, 1630, Hanshiro Tsugumo arrives at the estate of the Iyi clan, looking for a suitable place to commit seppuku. At the time, it is told, it was fairly common for disgraced samurai to make the same request, or threat, in the hope of receiving alms from the lord of the house. To deter him Kageyu Saito, counselor of the clan, tells Hanshiro a warning story wherein another ronin, Motome Chijiiwa – formerly of the same clan as Hanshiro – had made the same request and the samurai retainers of the house forced him to complete the ceremony and kill himself. When Motome's sword is revealed to be a fake made of bamboo, they refuse to give him a blade and insist that he disembowel himself with it, so that Motome's death is agonizingly painful. Despite this warning, Tsugumo maintains his request to commit suicide.
While preparing for the ritual, Tsugumo recounts to Saito and the retainers that his lord's house was considered a threat and toppled by the shogunate, whereupon his friend, another samurai, committed seppuku and left Tsugumo to look after his son, Motome Chijiiwa. Required to protect Chijiiwa and support his own daughter Miho, Hanshiro lived in poverty and worked menial jobs to support his family. In later years Chijiwa and Miho were married and had a son, Kingo, but continued to live in poverty. When Miho and Kingo became ill and could not afford to pay a physician, Chijiiwa threatened seppuku at a lord's house. Soon after his seppuku, Miho and Kingo died from their illnesses.
Hanshiro then reveals that before coming to the Iyi house, he tracked down two retainers of the house, Hayato Yazaki and Umenosuke Kawabe, whom he defeated easily and disgraced them by cutting off their topknots. A third retainer, Hikokuro Omodaka, comes to Hanshiro's home and challenges him to a ritual duel. Hanshiro and Hikokuro climatically duel in a brief but tense sword fight, where Hanshiro breaks Hikokuro's sword. Instead of honorably surrendering, Hikokuro continues to fight and his topknot is taken as well.
When Hanshiro finishes his account, Saito angrily orders the retainers to kill him; whereupon Tsugomo kills four and wounds eight while slowly succumbing to his wounds. When a new group of retainers arrive armed with guns, Tsugumo begins seppuku but is shot. Kawabe and Yazaki are ordered to commit seppuku, while Omodaka is reported to have done so already; their deaths, and the four inflicted by Hanshiro, are to be reported as from "illness", lest word be spread that the Iyi House has lost face to a ronin.
Read more about this topic: Harakiri (1962 Film)
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