All Categories
Product Description From visionary auteur Takashi Miike (13 Assassins, Ichi the Killer) comes the story of a mysterious samurai who arrives at the doorstep of his feudal lord, requesting an honorable death by ritual suicide in his courtyard. The lord threatens him with the brutal tale of Motome, a desperate young ronin who made a similar request with ulterior motives, only to meet a grisly end. Undaunted, the samurai begins to tell a story of his own, with an ending no one could see coming. With stunning cinematography and gripping performances, HARA-KIRI: DEATH OF A SAMURAI is a thrilling exploration of revenge, honor and individuality in the face of oppressive power. Special Features Geoffrey Gilmore, from Tribeca Film, Discusses HARA-KIRI, Presented by American Express Review A superbly acted revenger's tragedy --The Guardian UK About the Actor Koji Yakusho was born Koji Hashimoto on January 1, 1956 in Isahaya, Japan. He is the youngest of five brothers. After graduating from the Nagasaki Prefectural High School of Technology in 1974, he worked at the Chiyoda municipal ward office, or yakusho, in Tokyo, from which he later took his stage name. He is frequently cast by director Kiyoshi Kurosawa as he is one of his favorite actors. Eita, born December 13, 1982, is a Japanese actor from Tokyo. His birth name is Eita Nagayama. He has appeared in many Japanese television dramas and movies; most notable is the TV series Water Boys. He also appeared in Summer Time Machine Blues and Tokyo Friends: The Movie. Naoto Takenaka was born on March 20, 1956 and is a Japanese actor, comedian, singer, and director from Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture affiliated with From First Production. He is married to idol singer and actress Midori Kinouchi. About the Director Takashi Miike was born in the small town of Yao on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan. His main interest growing up was motorbikes, and for a while he harbored ambitions to race professionally. At the age of 18 he went to study at the film school in Yokohama founded by renowned director Shôhei Imamura, primarily because there were no entrance exams. By his own account Miike was an undisciplined student and attended few classes, but when a local TV company came scouting for unpaid production assistants, the school nominated the one pupil who never showed up: Miike. He spent almost a decade working in television, in many different roles, before becoming an assistant director in film to, amongst others, his old mentor Imamura. The "V-Cinema" (Direct to Video) boom of the early 1990s was to be Miike's break into directing his own films, as newly formed companies hired eager young filmmakers willing to work cheap and crank out low-budget action movies. Miike's first theatrically distributed film was Shinjuku kuroshakai: Chaina mafia sensô (1995) (Shinjuku Triad Society), and from then on he alternated V-Cinema films with higher-budgeted pictures. His international breakthrough came with Audition (1999) (Audition), and since then he has an ever expanding cult following in the west. A prolific director, Miike has directed (at the time of this writing) 60+ films in his 13 years as director, his films being known for their explicit and taboo representations of violence and sex, as seen in such works as Visitor Q (2001) (V) (Visitor Q), Ichi the Killer (2001) (Ichi The Killer) and the Dead or Alive Trilogy: Dead or Alive (1999), Dead or Alive 2: Tôbôsha (2000) and Dead or Alive: Final (2002).