“The suspicious mind conjures its own demons.”
That’s my vote for the best quote from a samurai film. It’s from the 1962 film “Harakiri,” which is one of my all-time favorite films. Tatsuya Nakadai plays the lead role as a ronin who shows up at a daimyo’s estate asking if he can use their courtyard to commit seppuku (ritual suicide, more crudely called hara-kiri). This is not your typical samurai film. The plot makes some interesting twists and turns before one discovers that this is not a film that glorifies the bushido code, but is a critical commentary of it.
The Criterion Collection release of this film includes an interview with film scholar Donald Richie, who reminds me of Joseph Campbell in that he says brilliant things as nonchalantly as if he were chatting about soup. For example, he elaborates on the symbolism of the samurai suit of armor that is repeatedly shown in the film as a metaphor for both the weight of the past and for the Tokugawa shogunate – “stern, imposing, frightening, and empty.”
My runner-up for best quote would be from “Sword of Doom” when, after slaying a band of would-be assassins, Mifune Toshiro says “Evil mind, evil sword.” True enough!
