Seven Samurai (1954)

Please Leave A Comment

Tell Me What You Feel

Seven Samurai (1954)

6/10

Starring

Takashi Shimura
Toshiro Mifune

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Distributed Toho (Japan) and Columbia Pictures (US)

Nothing beats a well thought of plan to ward off bandits. Samurai movies always show cases the best of swordsmanship, but this movie shows that a well thought strategic plan is better than a battalion of armed soldiers.

This Japanese adventure drama film was co-written and directed by Akira Kurosawa.

The film takes place in 1587 and it follows the story of a village of farmers that were constantly being raided by bandits who steal their crops during the time of harvest.

The villagers then decided to go source for help, they hired seven masterless samurai (ronin) to come help defend their village. A veteran samurai, who has fallen on hard times, answers the village's request for protection from the bandits. He gathers 6 other samurai to help him.

The village promised to supply the samurai with three small meals a day as payment for their services.

The 7 samurai thought the villagers how to defend themselves, building fortresses, taking down the bridges to limit the bandits entry points to one route and also thought them how to use weapons.

The movie is long, and it takes its time to build up to the defense of the city, but if you can manage to keep awake till then, what you will notice is mastery in camera footage, the cinematography is flawless, the editing can use a bit of touch up here and there, but the cinematography was just exceptional. My favourite shooting will be in the time when the rain was coming down and you will see how Akira managed to make the best of camera tricks to pass the message of a messy battle.

The film was the first samurai film that Akira Kurosawa had ever directed. He had originally wanted to direct a film about a single day in the life of a samurai but later discovered a story about samurai defending farmers in his research and decided to make this instead.

Seven Samurai was among the first films to use the now-common plot element of the recruiting and gathering of heroes into a team to accomplish a specific goal, a device used in later films such as The Guns of Navarone, Ocean's Eleven, The Dirty Dozen, and the western remake The Magnificent Seven.

When watching a movie that showcases bandits who refuse to count their numbers it makes you laugh. As time went on in the movie the bandits number kept dropping, and yet they kept attacking, that made me wonder what were they thinking.

The movie though made in 1954, has some wonderful display of acting, well i would advise if you have 3 hours to spear get the DVD, just try to stay awake till the last 40mins it is worth it.