Harakiri
(DVD)

880-04,Based on the novel "Ibun rōninki" by Takiguchi Yasuhiko.

Originally released as a motion picture in 1962.

Special features: disc 1: new, restored high-definition digital transfer; exclusive video introduction by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie; original theatrical trailer; new and improved English subtitle translation; disc 2: rare excerpt of a Directors Guild of Japan video interview with director Masaki Kobayashi conducted by filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda (Double Suicide); new video interviews with star Tatsuya Nakadai and screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto; poster gallery; A 32-page booklet featuring a new essay by film scholar Joan Mellen and a reprint of her 1972 interview with Kobayashi.

880-03,seisaku: Hosoya Tatsuo ; kyakuhon: Hashimoto Shinobu ; kantoku: Kobayashi Masaki ; satsuei: Miyajima Yoshio ; ongaku: Takemitsu Tōru.

880-02,Nakadai Tatsuya, Iwashita Shima, Ishihama Akira.

Peace in 17th-century Japan causes the Shogunate's breakup of warrior clans, throwing thousands of samurai out of work and into poverty. An honorable end to such fate under the samurai code is ritual suicide, or hara-kiri.

After an unemployed samurai is forced to commit harakiri before a feudal lord, his father-in-law returns to the scene, seemingly to play out the same agonizing suicide ritual.

DVD format, region 1, widescreen (2.35:1) presentation; Dolby Digital mono.

In Japanese with optional English subtitles.