Edo, 1630. Tsugumo Hanshirō arrives at the estate of the Ii clan and says that he wishes to commit seppuku within the courtyard of the palace. To deter him Saitō Kageyu (Rentarō Mikuni), the Daimyo's senior counselor, tells Hanshirō the story of another rōnin, Chijiiwa Motome – formerly of the same clan as Hanshirō.
Saito scornfully recalls the practice of ronin requesting the chance to commit seppuku on the clan's land, hoping to be turned away and given alms. Motome arrived at the palace a few months earlier and made the same request as Hanshirō. Infuriated by the rising number of "suicide bluffs", the three most senior samurai of the clan—Yazaki Hayato, Kawabe Umenosuke, and Omodaka Hikokuro—persuaded Saitō to force Motome to follow through and kill himself. Upon examining Motome's swords, their blades were found to be made of bamboo. Enraged that any samurai would "pawn his soul", the House of Ii forced Motome to disembowel himself with his own bamboo blade, making his death slow, agonizingly painful, and deeply humiliating.
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MPAA Rating: | NR |
Genre: | Action, Drama, History |
Country: | Japan |
Produced By: | Tatsuo Hosoya, Makoto NaitÔ, Tsugio SaitÔ, Gin'Ichi Kishimoto |
Directed By: | Masaki Kobayashi |
Written By: | Shinobu Hashimoto, Yasuhiko Takiguchi |
Cast: | Tsuneo Ikeda, Masao Mishima, Noboru Kasuga, Shôtarô Hayashi, Shimezô Kataoka, Yoshirô Aoki, Kôichi Hayashi, Tetsurô Tanba, Satoshi Nishida, Tôru Takeuchi, Rentarô Mikuni, Tatsuo Matsumura, Nakajirô Tomita, Hisashi Igawa, Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Ryûtarô Gomi, Shima Iwashita, Kenzô Tanaka, Shichisaburô Amatsu, Kenji Hayashi, Yoshio Inaba, Akiji Kobayashi, Kei Satô, Jô Azumi, Shin Nakahara, Gen Takasugi, Ichirô Yûki, Ichirô Nakatani |
In Theaters: | Aug 04, 1962 |
Runtime: | 2 hours 13 minutes |
Production: | Shôchiku Eiga |
Available On: | Amazon, Itunes |