Build a movie plot around this: Who does Hanshiro track down before coming to the Ii house? topknots
"Seppuku," or "Harakiri" has it is known in the West, is a particularly painful and rather messy way of ending ones days. In this ritual, the performer opens his abdomen, starting from left to right and then finishing from top toward bottom. But there is no need to be left for hours contemplating ones entrails. Another swordsman acting as a second, called "kaishakunin," is standing by to decapitate the departing at a pre-arranged moment in the ceremony. Lord Ieyasu Tokugawa, who founded Japan's last great "shogunate" dynasty in 1603, ordered the practice of harakiri to be discontinued by both secondary and primary retainers. Later on, in 1663, a stronger edict from Lord Nobutsuna Matsudaira of Izu, put an end to the practice altogether. By that time, the ritual had become an idle formalism, and the performer was decapitated at the instant he took his sword out of the scabbard, thus avoiding a painful death. In some instances, the sword was replaced by a fan!We are May 13, 1630, in Edo. Following the centralization of power by the Tokugawa Shogunate in the early 17th Century, few feudal clans were allowed to remain, leading to a substantial downsizing (but not off-shoring) in the samurai profession. A scrawny former retainer of the Lord of Geishu arrives at the gates of the official residence of Lord Iyi. This mysterious and somber "ronin" (un-retained samurai), Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai), unemployed since the abolition of the Geishu Clan in 1619, requests the temporary hospitality of the Clan in order to end his life as a worthy samurai by committing harakiri.Hanshiro is not the first ronin to come knocking at the door of one of the local remaining feudal clans with such a request, including one most recently at Lord Iyis residence itself. In the beginning of this recession, the surviving clans were impressed by the steadfast "samurai" and generously turned them away with small alms. Unfortunately, this practice led to abuses on the part of some destitute ronin who faked the desire to commit...