Takashi Miike's "Harakiri" remake gets an impressive extended trailer

by Chris MaGee

The 64th annual Cannes Film Festival is under way and that means that the world is getting their first look at Takashi Miike's big budget, 3D remake of the 1962 classic "Harakiri". We at the Pow-Wow have had a hard time swallowing the idea of a re-jigged version of Masaki Kobayashi's story of a samurai seeking revenge for the cruel treatment and forced suicide of his adopted son by a group of callous noblemen. Still, with "Ichimei" (the new title for this new Miike version) finally seeing the dark of the theatre in Cannes we are getting peeks like the one below -- an extended trailer with Ebizo Ichikawa taking the place of Tatsuya Nakadai and Koji Yakusho stepping into the shoes of Rentaro Mikuni. What's the verdict? It's hard to tell from just these few minutes, but it certainly does look like Miike has remained faithful to the original source material, plus the cinematography looks gorgeous. Call us purists though, but we still need to ask: You can remake "Harakiri", sure, but should you? You be the judge and have your say in the comments.

Thanks to Nippon Cinema for pointing the way to this.