Yûkoku

The contribution of Yukio Mishima to the Seventh Art was no big deal, but it does have one or two sequences that are really intense. His patriotic fever has its portrait in this elegy about sex and death, the suicide as an art or as an act of honor.

I recommend this one only for those that are fascinates by the figure of the Japanese writer.

*My rate: 5/10

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make sure to watch the version with the new score by aaron embry. it's much more beautiful as the ambient music adds so much to the film where the older music made it seem dated which was unfortunate because the cinematography was so ahead of it's time.

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Short film, i was suprised by the fact that apart from the music that it was silent. The lighting is beautiful and the film is made with obvious care and passion. The end of the film is in direct contrast to the rest with its very extreme imagry of the seppuku ritual, but altogether this film gets my vote as a very artisitc mood film.... A lot of film makers now should consider the use of that lighting!!!!!!!

This is a very hard movie to rate or even review, as it is so foreign. Now I don't mean 'foreign' because it's made abroad, but 'foreign' because the entire story, style and spirit of this short film is alien to many out there who are not from an older generation in Japan. The film is a Noh play that is entirely without dialog--just music, LOTS of intertitle cards explaining the situation and a couple going through a long and drawn out ritual suicide!! See what I mean?! This ain't a Spielberg or John Ford film!! Instead, it's horribly violent and disgusting to watch because it is so real. Yet, at the time of its release, the film was admired because it was a lesson in honor and fidelity! It all stems from a real incident in 1936 when an officer was ordered to execute his friends who had participated in an attempted coup. So, if your idea of fun is watching a couple slowly and silently disembowel themselves, then by all means watch it. After all, the cinematography is amazingly good and is one of the prettier black & white films I have seen and the music is lovely as they eviscerate themselves. Sadly, I had hoped that the short was instead an explanation of WHY the coup was attempted in the first place--now THAT would have been interesting.

Kids: Don't try this at home!

This extraordinary short film combines a traditional Kabuki theatre style with very cinematic realism in the death scene; Only the use of Wagner's "Isolde's Liebestod" appears to be a bit over the top. If you know about Mishima's life story you will find this film to be a stunning pre-conception of things to come. Unfortunately public screenings outside Japan are forbidden due to a legal dispute.