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Released by: Unearthed Films
Released on: October 27, 2008.1
Director: N/A
Cast: N/A
Year: 1990
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The Movie:
Compiling the six Zankoku-bi: onna Harakiri films on DVD in North America for the first time, Unearthed Films seems to be returning to the underground Japanese gore film genre that they started with. The easiest point of comparison for these films would probably be the first few entries in the Guinea Pig series though where those were faux-snuff films, these are a firmly grounded in the area of ritual suicide. For the unaware, harakiri, or seppuku, is basically the Japanese tradition of ritual disembowelment. It began as a tradition among the samurai class so that they could give themselves an honorable death rather than die at the hands of their enemies.
With seppuku, the ritual is as important as the act itself. To commit seppuku properly, you had to prepare. It was important to have the right attire, the right kind of blade, and the right setting to commit the act. While seppuku is obviously not as common an aspect of Japanese culture as it was in the era of the samurai, it has never the less left its mark on the society that spawned it, which is where these six hour long videos come into play.
Each of the six pictures takes a slightly different approach to the subject matter, but ultimately shows in fairly grisly and realistic detail what a ritualistic seppuku ceremony would be like. So without further ado…
Female Harakiri: Glorious Death:
A woman sits in the corner of a dark room and looks at the folded uniform of a WWII era Japanese soldier. We fade out then see her kneeling in a kimono on a mat. She disrobes and fondles herself, preparing her body for what's to come. She takes out a knife and lays it on the floor until she's ready, at which point she wraps it and holds it to her breast. She pushes the blade into her stomach and slits herself open. She lies on the mat and slowly bleeds to death.
School Girl: Harakiri:
A school girl kneels on her mat looking over an old photo album containing pictures of people committing seppuku. Becoming aroused by what she sees, she touches herself and licks her fingertips. She pulls out a knife of her own, takes off her uniform, and in a very fetishistic manner proceeds to slit open her stomach and then pull out her guts. She gets down on all fours, pulls out some more of her intestines, and then dies in a pile of gore.
Female Harakiri: Celebration:
A woman in a nurse's outfit sits in a dark room. She kneels on a mat and looks over a knife, touching it with her fingers and examining it. She runs the knife over her stocking clad legs and contemplates suicide. She plunges the blade into her abdominal region and pulls it across. She pulls the blade out, falls over and crawls across the floor to lean against a support beam to finish the job.
White Clothing: Harakiri:
A black and white preface shows a woman in a traditional kimono climbing the stairs as WWII era Mitsubishi Zeros fly through the sky and footage of the Japanese military of the era is superimposed over the footage. She stops at the top of the stairs to say her prayers, rings a bell, and heads inside where the footage is shot in color. She unravels her kimono and rubs her face with the cloth before wrapping her blade and lovingly touching it. She pulls it across her stomach and slits herself open, falling to the mat. She crawls across the mat, dying, slipping in her own slick blood until she can't move anymore.
Paradise Lost: Riding Habit Harakiri:
A girl in what looks like a military riding outfit remembers the past as she undresses. She wraps her blade, puts it into her stomach and pulls it across, intent on killing herself. She slowly slices an opening in her lower torso and her entrails flop out in front of her onto her lap. She gets down on all fours and then lies on her side and soon there's more out of her stomach than left inside of it. She stops moving and when she's found dead, the man who finds her shoots himself in the head. This short features background music by Merzbow.
Beautiful Swordswoman: Double Seppuku:
Two female samurai wander down a hill, injured from a battle we were not witness to. Rather than let their enemies take them, they decide to commit seppuku. The first woman disrobes, wraps her blade and then disembowels herself as her companion watches. As she lies there breathing her last, the second woman follows suit.
While these are fairly repetitive and obviously made on a low budget, the performances are convincing enough that they have some impact. Add to that the overly sexual performances and phallic symbolism afforded to the blades used and the implied masturbatory antics of some of the actresses and you're left with a truly unusual blending of sex and death (or, if you prefer boxy copy hyperbole, boobs and blood). While plenty of attention is paid to the nudity and gore effects that make up so much of each picture, there's also a strange sense of sadness to each of the films that elevates the material ever so slightly above your average shot on video gore fest. Each film builds very slowly to its climax and those in need of a quick fix or money shot (so to speak) will likely doze off before it happens as, as it should be, there's a lot of emphasis put on the ceremony and ritual rather than simply bombarding the viewer with perky tits and slimy entrails. As such, these feel more like experimental art films than shock/gore pieces.
While they may not be entertaining in the literal or traditional sense, they're interesting as cultural artifacts. Uniquely Japanese in their intent and execution, the content won't appeal to a mass audience - in fact it's hard to say who this material is really geared to - but it does have a skewed artistic merit to it.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Each of the movies was shot on consumer grade video so you can't realistically expect a sterling presentation but for older VHS level material, it doesn't look bad. There's some softness inherent in the source material and detail is iffy from time to time but generally everything is quite watchable for what it is.
There isn't much to these movies in terms of sound mix - there's not really any background music or any sound effects to note. What is captured well is the rather tragic and unsettling sounds of the girls gasping and crying as they die.
Aside from menus, disc one features trailers for Female Harakiri: Glorious Death, School Girl: Harakiri, Female Harakiri: Celebration, White Clothing: Harakiri, Paradise Lost: Riding Habit Harakiri, Beautiful Swordswoman: Double Seppuku, Red Room and Red Room 2.
Disc two features Cold Night: Bloodless Edition, which starts off with a naked woman who slowly gets dressed into a kimono. She unwraps her blade and ponders what she's about to do before disrobing again and killing herself. Not a single drop of blood appears in this short, which then segues into an interview with the actress who talks about the concept of seppuku as drama and how this film came to be made. She discusses the cultural significance of the act and how there are even instructions written on how to do it properly. It's a fairly interesting discussion that puts this material into some very welcome cultural context.
The third and final disc features The Making Of Beautiful Swordswoman that shows how some of the gore effects were done before moving on to showing the production as it was being shot. At just under seventeen minutes it's kind of an interesting look at a very odd production, but it's strangely amusing to see the cast and crew looking jovial and amused as they go about their business.
The Final Word:
Unearthed Films has said that they won't be reissuing this set and seeing as it's limited to only 1,000 copies, they won't be around forever. As far as the content itself goes, you're either going to appreciate it or not, there won't be any middle ground here. Fans of extreme horror, faux snuff and underground gore will appreciate Harakiri as the fucked up art project that it is, and evaluated on that level, it's pretty successful. This material certainly isn't for everyone, but Unearthed has done a nice job making it available.