Harakiri is a far more successful story for the simple reason that it is not so completely one-sided. In Harakiri, the hero thinks he proves that the Samurai code is a sham because it cannot make sense when the survival of the samurais as a class is endangered - but eventually we have the feeling that the code is even more necessary in those difficult times, even if it is a sham. There is a "big picture".
In Samurai Rebellion, Kobayashi is trying to write a Shakespearean tragedy, but he clearly missed some of tragedy's subtleties. Tragedies are never so one-sided, never simply the hero that is in the right against the power that is in the wrong. In a word, it is never just the individual x authority clash that sums up this movie. If Kobayashi had payed more attention to Greek tragedies and to Shakespeare (Richard II is a good start), he would find out that a necessary element is that authority is in danger when it violates the individual's rights defined by tradition, even if it ultimately prevails. In here, the rebel's isolation is complete, and his insistence in rebellion is just self-affirmation ("I never felt so alive", the hero proclaims - how tacky is that?). Even that proclamation of authenticity is somehow fake: Mifune's character emboldens the young couple because he sees in them an alternative to the unhappy marriage he has always had. That is not finding oneself, it is projection. In the end, all that's left is folly.
But if the movie fails as tragedy, it works pretty well as an action/drama, and is not a lesser samurai flick. Kobayashi aims too high and misses, but still hits something.
In Samurai Rebellion, Kobayashi is trying to write a Shakespearean tragedy, but he clearly missed some of tragedy's subtleties. Tragedies are never so one-sided, never simply the hero that is in the right against the power that is in the wrong. In a word, it is never just the individual x authority clash that sums up this movie. If Kobayashi had payed more attention to Greek tragedies and to Shakespeare (Richard II is a good start), he would find out that a necessary element is that authority is in danger when it violates the individual's rights defined by tradition, even if it ultimately prevails. In here, the rebel's isolation is complete, and his insistence in rebellion is just self-affirmation ("I never felt so alive", the hero proclaims - how tacky is that?). Even that proclamation of authenticity is somehow fake: Mifune's character emboldens the young couple because he sees in them an alternative to the unhappy marriage he has always had. That is not finding oneself, it is projection. In the end, all that's left is folly.
But if the movie fails as tragedy, it works pretty well as an action/drama, and is not a lesser samurai flick. Kobayashi aims too high and misses, but still hits something.