The time is 1630. Unemployed samurai, called ronin, wander the land. There is peace in Japan, and that leads to their unemployment. Their hearts, minds and swords have been pledged to their masters, and now they are cast adrift, unable to feed and shelter their families. It would be much the same with a corporation today, when a loyal employee with long tenure is "downsized." Loyalty runs only from the bottom up.

At the gate of the official mansion of Lord Iyi, a shabby ronin named Tsugumo Hanshiro applies for an audience with the clan elder, Saito Kayegu (Rentaro Mikuni). He has been set loose by Lord Geishu and has no job. He requests permission to kill himself in the clan's forecourt. The ritual act is known as harakiri, or seppuku (which is the film's title in Japanese). It involves using a short blade for self-disembowelment. After the blade plunges in and slices from left to right, a designated master swordsman stands by to decapitate the samurai with one powerful stroke.

Tsugumo desires to kill himself because of the disgrace of being an jobless samurai. Saito tells him a story designed to discourage this. In the district there have been many appeals like this, and in some cases the desperate samurais had their lives spared and were given work by the clan they appealed to. They didn't really want to commit harakiri at all. However, Saito says, many clans have wised up to this tactic. He tells a story of Chijiwa Motome (Akira Ishihama), another cast-off from Lord Geishu. He turned up not long ago here in this very forecourt, he says, asking the same permission. Saito granted it--but only if he performed the ritual immediately. Motome gave his word as a samurai that he would indeed kill himself, but asked permission to first pay a short personal visit. Saito saw this as a delaying tactic, and commanded Motome to disembowel himself then and there. This was not easy, because Motome had pawned his short sword, and had a cheap bamboo replacement. As a man of honor, he fell on this blunt blade and caused great damage and pain before being decapitated.

So you see, Saito tells Tsugumo, you had better be sincere. "I assure you I'm quite sincere," Tsugumo says, "but first I request your permission to tell a story"--one that will be heard by Saito and the retainers of the household, who are seated solemnly around the edges of the courtyard.

"Harakiri" was released in 1962, the work of Masaki Kobayashi (1916-1996), best known for "Kwaidan" (1965), an assembly of ghost stories that is among the most beautiful films I've seen. He also made the nine-hour epic "The Human Condition" (1959-1961) which was critical of the way the Bushido Code permeated Japanese life and helped create the state of mind which led to World War II. And he made "Samurai Rebellion" (1967), about a man who refuses to offer his wife to a superior.

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