Themes
The film presents a negative view of the emerging feudal system at the beginning of the 17th century, depicting the hypocrisy in the flimsy pretext of honor exhibited by the daimyo. At the time, harakiri was seen as a means to retain one's honor after a disgrace. The vanity of the feudal lord's counsellor Kageyu Saito is also shown: the outward appearance of honour is shown to be more important to him than real honour. He orders the retainers disgraced by Hanshiro Tsugumo to commit seppuku, and makes sure that those who were slain or had their topknots cut off by Hanshiro are written off as casualties to illness so that his house would not appear weak. An ironic commentary appears when Tsugumo is able to fight off a great many retainers with a sword, yet is helpless against three guns; a foreshadow of the Meiji Restoration, wherein sword-bearing samurai were defeated by the "new" Japanese military.
Read more about this topic: Harakiri (1962 Film)
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