Movie Review: Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (Ichimei) - 2011

Debunking the myth of samurai honor

"Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai" is another samurai movie by Takashi Miike which he made right after 13 Assassins and which is also a remake of a movie from the 1960s. It is a very different take on the samurai subject though in that it is less of an action movie and more of a bitter social drama that criticizes the hypocrisy of samurai culture in the Edo era.

Mostly told in retrospective, "Hara Kiri" is a story about a masterless samurai who requests a clan lord to allow him to commit ritual suicide on the lord's estate. The lord is suspicious though since such requests have become fashionable among poor samurai as a means to get alms. So the lord decides to make an example: instead of giving the samurai some money he forces him to actually kill himself in a ritual that turns out to be inhumanely agonizing. Two months later, another samurai arrives at the estate, with a similar suicide request. As a warning, the lord tells him about the fate of the poor wretch who died there earlier. But the man already knows about that. In fact, he knew the dead man very well, and he tells the lord the story of his life.

Major part of "Hara Kiri"is spent with the depiction of the poverty of the samurai's family. As your sympathy for him grows, you feel nothing but contempt for the lord and his hypocritical idea of honor, which is just as hollow as the armor suit exhibited at the center of his estate. However, while the display of poverty is crucial to establish the movie's moral, there is just too much of it for my taste. The beginning of "Hara Kiri" is strong and unnerving, but then it meanders in poverty melodrama for such a long time that its action packed last act actually feels out of place.

I have a hard time liking the movie since it is so bitter, but I still think that it is important since it contrasts Hollywood productions that mystify samurai honor, like "The Last Samurai" or the "Kill Bill" series. Or "Ghost Dog", which is about a killer living by the samurai code described in the Hagakure, which is a morbid book mystified in the West as some sort of esoteric business guide. Generally, there is a strong fascination in the West with Bushido, the samurai way of life, which is expressed by movies like the ones mentioned above. However, even the samurai code that the Hollywood movies claim to be based on is basically just a fabrication of the Edo era, which began with the 17th century. That era was way more peaceful than the previous ones, and it was the time when the samurai stopped being warriors and became a ruling class of government officials. Ironically, the more the samurai ceased to be warriors, the more they became obsessed with an idea of warriors' honor that actually hadn't much to do with the samurais' way of living during the previous millennium.

"Hara Kiri" plays in that era, and it is mentioned during the movie that most of the lord's samurai haven't actually fought in battle. The lord's hypocrisy isn't just a plot tool added to give the movie a villain. Rather, the movie appears to provide a fairly accurate description of the state of society at that time. Considering that, "Hara Kiri" is worth watching, so it's a pity that it loses so much momentum during the middle act.

Rating: 6 out of 10 chopped-off topknots.

Movie Review: Hair Extensions (Ekusute) - 2007

Believe it or not, this is a rock-solid horror movie about hair extensions!

"Let's make a horror movie about hair extensions attacking people!" sounds like an idea for a Halloween episode of "The Simpsons". But astonishingly, it lead to a gem of Japanese horror. "Hair Extensions" aka "Ekuste" aka "Exte" is horrifying, funny, touching, and highly entertaining.

The movie wastes no time. At the beginning, we're introduced to Yuko, who wants to become a stylist and who is living with Yuki, who wants to be a dancer. The introduction is established within perhaps 20 seconds since the young women address another by name and profession as if they were reciting their character descriptions from the script. This self-awareness of the movie gives it a satirical touch that seems very suitable. After all,  "Hair Extension" can be seen as a reflection on the obsession of Japanese horror movies with hair. Take "Ju-on", for example, where you have black hair growing from everywhere all the time. Or Sadako from "Ringu", whose style of wearing her long black hair over her face has become a trademark of J-horror.

Now, Yuko (played by Chiaki Kuriyama of "Kill Bill" fame) has an abusive bitch of a sister who dumps her little daughter, Mami, at Yuko. It's heartbreaking to see how this nice girl gets physically and verbally abused by her loathsome mother. All the more you have to love Yuko for trying to protect Mami even though she's already occupied with the work at the hair salon. This social drama aspect provides the movie with unexpected gravity. Still, it's a horror movie, and the horror comes early in shape of the corpse of a girl found in a container full of hair. Yamazaki, a freak with a hair fetish, steals the corpse and brings it home. To his amazement, the corpse is still growing hair, and he thinks it's a good idea to sell it as extensions.

Even though Yamazaki is only a supporting character, he is quite complex. He's a trickster figure at the heart of the story, mediating between the supernatural and mundane world, and he's defining the bizarre tone of the movie. It didn't surprise me to learn from the DVD extras that director Shion Sono and Ren Osugi, who plays Yamazaki, invested a lot of work in the development of the character.

Despite the comedy and drama in "Hair Extensions", it is certainly not for the squeamish. The superb special effects are quite grizzly. Overall, I found this gem of Japanese horror strangeness to be virtually flawless.

Rating: 10 out of 10 deadly hair styles.

Movie Review: Kaidan - 2007

Beautiful old ghost story

Just as I finished the review for The Complex, here's "Kaidan", another movie from "Ringu" director Hideo Nakata. It is very different in style and content from other J-horror movies, including Nakata's own, and establishes him as one of Japan's most versatile directors.

"Kaidan" is based on an old Japanese ghost story. Nakata emphasizes this by introducing a story teller who is shown during the stylized black and white opening and who later off-comments on the story. Which begins with a man who gets betrayed and killed by a samurai, but not before he puts a curse on his murderer. Many years later, the roguish samurai's son, who is now a poor tobacco seller, coincidentally meets the slain man's elder daughter, who is now a respectable teacher of singing and music. They fall in love with another, not knowing that they share a murderous past. And not knowing that there will be blood, thanks to the curse.

"Kaidan" is a pleasure to the eye. The historical costumes, buildings, and scenery are beautiful. Nearly every frame of the movie is carefully arranged like a painting. I watched it twice, once dubbed and once with subtitles, but each time I sometimes forgot to listen or read since I was absorbed by the images.
Hitomi Kuroki's performance as the elder daughter is outstanding. She has a soulful face that seems to mirror even the tiniest fugitive thought. Unfortunately, the performance of the male lead, Kikunosuke Onoe, pales in comparison to hers.

If I had to put this movie in a genre, I'd say it's a romantic historical horror drama. Maybe it has too few horror for horror fans, or too few romance for romance fans. But if you can appreciate a unique film that is both uncanny and beautiful, "Kaidan" is highly recommended.

Rating: 8 out of 10 kimonos.

Movie Review: Mother (Madeo) - 2009

Another great Korean movie that likely will be remade by Hollywood

"Mother" is a beautifully filmed murder mystery which has a tone to it that is hard to describe. It is dark but at times it is also light hearted. It is down to earth but sometimes surreal. Definitely, it has clever writing, great cinematography, and outstanding acting. At that, it plays in the same league with other Korean hits like "Oldboy" or "Lady Vengeance", so it's no bold guess that it will be remade by Hollywood just like those. Which is a shame since the remakes steal attention from their originals. But that is another subject. 

A girl got killed, and a young man is suspected to be the murderer. He knows he is innocent, but he is also a slow thinker and helpless without support. Police make him sign a confession that he doesn't understand. Case closed for authorities. But not for his mother. Since the police aren't interested in further investigations, she starts investigating on her own, digging into the mystery of what actually happened.

I don't want to give away more, so let's leave it at that. I was surprised to find out that director Joon-ho Bong also made "The Host", a monster movie I happened to have seen before. But although these movies seem so different at first sight, at their core they are about similar themes; about family bonds getting disrupted through external events, and about the lengths that people will go to save their loved ones.

Rating: 9 out of 10 confessions.

Movie Review: Rashomon - 1950

Rashomon: The Trickster Film

If you like Asian movies, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon is a definite must-see because it is not only an overall great film but also the first Japanese film that became an international success, a classic that started it all. Plus, Rashomon is now in the public domain, so you can watch it for free legally on the Internet. Which you should. I watched it for the first time when I was very young, but it wasn't until later years that I could fully appreciate it. It's a movie for adults in the best sense of the word.

Strangely, while Rashomon was celebrated by international critics, Japanese critics didn't like it and suggested that it appealed to Westerners only because it was exotic, as Kurosawa bitterly noticed. Well, a prophet has no honor in his own country.

Although it cannot be denied that the exoticism of Rashomon adds to its appeal, that alone cannot explain the out-of-nowhere international success of this movie. There has to be something about Rashomon that strikes a chord in viewers independent of their cultural background. I think it has something to do with the fact that - intentionally or not - Rashomon plays with an archetypal constellation, a pattern more or less subconsciously known, and thus understood, in all cultures (and often expressed by mythological figures): The Trickster. A trickster constellation is a pattern where several or all of the following occur simultaneously: deception, disruption, reduced sexual inhibition, blurring of boundaries, and magical practices. Rashomon is about all of that. The tragedy begins with an act of deception by the bandit Tajomaru, and the deception doesn't end there. The events are disruptive - especially, of course, to the murdered Samurai and his wife. Obviously, uncontrolled sexuality plays a role as well, as does the blurring of boundaries. Ultimately, Rashomon blurs the boundaries between truth and fiction. Even the supernatural aspect is there: A dead man speaking from his grave through a medium, once again blurring a boundary, namely that between the living and the dead. The feelings of dread expressed by the monk near the end are also in line with trickster phenomena. At least that's what Jungian psychology says. Looking at the creation of Rashomon and at its international reception, I have come to believe that there's more to archetypal psychology than I once thought.

Now, I think there is a reason why foreign critics liked the movie better than Japanese critics. It is simple but paradoxical: It is easier for foreigners to detect the psychological content of the movie. For a foreigner, much of the movie is exotic. Yet the more exotic a movie is for a viewer, the easier it is for him to spot the aspects of it which are familiar, which are fundamentally human and independent of culture. Hence, foreigners are in advantage when it comes to noticing the psychology of the movie. This paradox, again, fits nicely with the trickster character of Rashomon.

Rating: 10 out of 10 different accounts.