Movie Reviews: 1: Jupiter Ascending and 2: Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai 1: Jupiter Ascending: I tried, but I just couldn't watch it for more than 5 minutes. A 15 year old New Idea magazine was far more enthralling and relevant. 2: Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai: World Movies. A destitute samurai asks to commit hara-kiri at the estate of Feudal Lord Kageyu.(MA). This very visually beautiful and somewhat brutal film is set in the warlord times of Japan, in the 1600s after the Shogun system had been decimated and then rebuilt with a vengeance. The subtitled dialogue is very good. The acting is intense and poignant. This is a serious and quite superb movie that analyses the Samurai Code, Shintoism and the struggle for compassion in a harsh and yet honoured & meaningful social caste system. Brutality is there, for sure; as is the enhanced style-ism that defines Shogun culture in that epoch. Riveting performances from the actors and excellent direction and cinematography. Tragic/Beautiful. It reminded me in some ways of Yasunari Kawabata's book Beauty & Sadness and serves well in making understandable some of the more difficult aspects of militarism, art and culture in that remarkably human, though not humane, epoch. It could be called 'a search for compassion in a hard time in the world'/ in this way it has many universal qualities. Characters are very brilliantly developed and on show. A masterpiece of modern Japanese insight-cinema from 2011.