"Harakiri" or "Madame Butterfly" is a German black-and-white silent film from almost 100 years ago directed by the famous Fritz Lang. The original version ran for 80 minutes, but the one I watched only had 60, so maybe some parts are lost or they just changed it to more frames per second. Anyway, it is okay that this was a fairly short film compared to "Metropolis" for example as "Harakiri" is not too memorable despite going for lots of drama, romance and emotion. Sometimes it succeeds in these areas, sometimes it doesn't. The cast are all German actors and most of them play Japanese characters, which is admittedly a bit awkward. The most known cast member is definitely Lil Dagover. Despite the good moments, this film has a problem that so many other silent films have: There just are not enough intertitles for audiences to understand the plot and action from start to finish. And that is a deal-breaker, in this case as well. I do not recommend "Harakiri". Thumbs down.
Review of Harakiri
