CULTJAPAN!

Harakiri is a 1962 Japanese film directed by Masaki Kobayashi. The story takes place between 1619 and 1630 during the Edo period and the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate. It tells of a ronin, Hanshiro Tsugumo, who instead of committing seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment) after his lord was deposed, was ordered to stay alive in order to care for his daughter and grandson as well as his son-in-law, the son of another samurai who had committed the ritual suicide. Read more…

Kwaidan is a 1964 Japanese portmanteau film directed by Masaki Kobayashi; the title means ‘ghost story’. It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn’s collections of Japanese folk tales. The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories. Kwaidan is the archaic transliteration of Kaidan, meaning “ghost story”. Read more…