YMMV / Harakiri

• Narm: The remake kind of ruins the drama of Hanshiro's final rampage by revealing that he sold his blades and replaced them with bamboo, and then having him fight all the retainers with it instead of starting out with a wakizashi and then taking weapons from the enemy. While the original makes it look like the Ii retainers are a bunch of bumbling cowards because they can't kill one swordsman even when they've got him surrounded—which is perfectly consistent with Hanshiro's statement that peacetime samurai are a joke—this remade version is just too silly. If they'd wanted to have him go the Technical Pacifist route as a protest against bushido, he could have at least invoked Wooden Katanas Are Even Better by using a bokuto made of solid hardwood, which can block steel blades and break bones in the right hands. A bamboo blade thin enough to fit inside a regular scabbard is useless for either attack or defense—he might as well be unarmed—and it's just impossible to suspend your disbelief when so many guys with real swords don't just Zerg Rush him without any fear of harm.
• Tear Jerker: The long, slow death of Hanshiro's family. The misery and desperation is palpable, and to see a hardened samurai like Hanshiro so terrified and helpless is utterly wrenching.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Kobayashi was a veteran of the Pacific War who was fiercely critical of Japan's conduct during that time. He had also dabbled in socialism, although he would become critical of these ideas too. It's easy to draw similarities between the events in this film and Marx's critique of ideology and how it is used as a tool of obfuscation by the powerful so that other people will not see how corrupt they are.

---