---
title: "Harakiri (1962) review"
description: "Harakiri: beautiful cinematography, devastating story, and one of cinema's most scathing critiques of power."
url: https://www.joekarlsson.com/reviews/harakiri/
---

![A still from Harakiri (1962)](https://www.joekarlsson.com/images/reviews/harakiri/backdrop.webp)

# Harakiri (1962)

Nov 22, 2025 | 2 min read | Rated 5 out of 5 | Dir. Masaki Kobayashi

Harakiri: beautiful cinematography, devastating story, and one of cinema’s most scathing critiques of power.

This is a slow-burn, powerful, anti-authoritarian, anti-samurai masterpiece that’s beautifully shot and oftentimes gory and genuinely difficult to watch. It takes everything noble and honorable about the samurai code and methodically reveals it as a weapon wielded by those in power to crush the desperate and maintain their authority.

I’ve been sitting with this one for a while. I think this is one of the most entertaining and scathing takedowns of how those in power co-opt and corrupt customs for their own benefit. It’s about a man who, through desperation and grief, works to expose the hypocrisy of these systems with surgical precision. He doesn’t fight with his sword - he fights with his story, forcing the powerful to confront exactly what their “honor” has cost. What makes this so effective is how patient it is. The film takes its time revealing what’s actually happening, and when it finally shows you the full picture, it’s devastating. The flashback structure isn’t just a narrative device - it’s a trap being set for both the samurai clan and the audience.

These themes still resonate today - how institutions use tradition and ritual to justify cruelty, how they punish the vulnerable for failing to live up to standards the powerful never have to face, how “honor” becomes a cudgel rather than a virtue. This probably explains why this film is so popular on Letterboxd right now. It speaks directly to our current moment of questioning authority and exposing institutional hypocrisy.

The cinematography is gorgeous - stark, composed, every frame deliberate. And when the violence comes, it’s brutal and difficult. This isn’t romanticized samurai combat. It’s ugly and desperate and horrible, which is exactly the point.

I think I’m gonna need a break before I approach this film again. It’s heavy and emotionally draining in ways that make it hard to revisit immediately. But I do think knowing where it’s going will help me more deeply appreciate this film on a rewatch - seeing how every piece is being carefully positioned from the very beginning.

This is essential viewing. A masterpiece of anti-authoritarian cinema disguised as a period samurai drama.

Also on [Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/joekarlsson/film/harakiri/)

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Karlsson

I write about my homelab, AI tools, databases, and the weird stuff I build on the side.

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