Rigorous and solemn... [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7.5/10 | Oct 4, 2022

"Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai" offers a reason to rejoice, allowing Miike to stretch his abilities in a film that's deliberately paced, but moving nonetheless in invoking an emotion rarely seen in his films before: compassion.

| Dec 17, 2018

The emphasis throughout is not on action, but melodrama - with a rather long and overstated middle section devoted to Monotome's backstory which has little dramatic tension.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 27, 2018

...[Director Miike Takashi] is content showing himself a stylist that has understood what it takes to be a good genre filmmaker today...

| Oct 9, 2017

HK:DOAS is a beautifully artistic, yet unflinching revenge film; distorted by unnecessary 3D and 45 minutes of additional runtime.

| Original Score: 2.5 | Mar 15, 2013

A cinematic work of art, presenting a world in which humanity is banished in favour of the rituals of an ever-warring people

| Mar 15, 2013

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 3, 2013

It's not about Bushido, it's about its representation.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 19, 2012

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai reveals yet another facet of this always-unpredictable filmmaker: a flair for compassionate, humane melodrama.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 23, 2012

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai is another solid rather than flamboyant film from Japan's master of extreme Takashi Miike.

| Sep 2, 2012

Hara-Kiri may be a lesser Miike work, but it's still a (literally) gutsy exercise in prolonged narrative recursiveness.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 31, 2012

Miike's remake is actually less intense than the original.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 22, 2012

A quiet, narratively layered period drama with a focus squarely on character.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 16, 2012

Pointless 3D, and with the way the story was told, there were no surprises. It does however feature the most horrific suicide I've watched on film.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Aug 13, 2012

In turn, cruel, savage, humane, joyful and finally devastating and visually transcendent. Originally in 3-D.

| Original Score: A | Jul 27, 2012

The tragedy Miike aims for somehow eludes him within these under-lit interiors and shooting through netting that often blurs facial expressions

| Original Score: 4 | Jul 26, 2012

Miike can't seem to get enough of Hanshiro's heroics. That's not just visual excess, though.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 26, 2012

The movie is tellingly named after the blunt, informal term for the ritual (hara-kiri means "cut belly") and effectively deglorifies these "honorable" ritual suicides.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 25, 2012

A worthy remake of the 1962 classic at just the right time, given the authoritarianism that led to the Fukushima disaster.

| Jul 24, 2012

There are many more enlightening and entertaining films out there about ancient Japanese traditions that are far more deserving of your time.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jul 23, 2012