Miike's Hara-Kiri is beautifully directed, but
it's also depressing, boring in parts, and not terribly original.
I'm having a problem finding movies I'm interested in. I was watching the trailer for Blitz seeing if I could get into it enough to watch it, and I felt like I wanted to see something with swords. I had Hara-Kiri on my list of movies to watch, so I watched the trailer for that. I wasn't exactly sold, but I decided to go with it anyway. I wanted something with a little substance, even if I was running the risk of being bored.
Apparently, according to IMDb, the original was better. I
didn't even know there was an original. I found out about the remake when I was
looking through Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's reviews. He liked it, and I've always
been interested in Miike's stuff. 13 Assassins was good, although everything
before that was pretty crazy. I can't even believe I watched that stuff
anymore. Supposedly the original draws you in more, and there's more dialogue
between the father and the clan guy.
That would've been good, because my suspicions were right:
I got bored, especially in the middle. I really lost interested when they took
the focus away from the present-day stuff and started talking about how Hanshirô
knew Motome. The cinematography was great, though. I loved the camerawork and
the sets. It really was beautifully directed. I don't know why Miike shot it in
3D. That probably didn't add much, although it would've been a good effect with
the falling snow.
I liked the slow, deliberate pacing of the camera and
people's movements, and the fact that we saw what happened to Motome and then
afterward learned why it happened made it more interesting.
