Foreign Film February Presents: Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai (1954)

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Akira Kurosawa
Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama

The Story

A small village is the target for a group of bandits that plan to come back to the village when the harvest is ready. One of the villagers overhears the plans of the bandits and brings the news back to the village. The village must then decide how they are going to deal with the inevitable attack of the bandits. When they go to the old wise man in the village for help, it is decided that they will have to fight the bandits and the only way to fight is to hire samurai since the villagers are simple farmers and would stand no chance in a fight. To be exact they need Seven Samurai. The village has to get the Seven Samurai to fight for them with only food and shelter to offer.


Everything Else

Seven Samurai is one of my favorite Akira Kurosawa films. When I first saw Seven Samurai I had high hopes because I had earlier seen Rashomon, another excellent film by Akira Kurosawa. Those high hopes did not make Seven Samurai disappointing because Seven Samurai was equally as good as Rashomon if not better. This convinced me that Akira Kurosawa was a great filmmaker and I made a point to see as many of his films as I could get my hands on. I have yet to be disappointed by any of his films.


Seven Samurai is Kurosawa’s most well known film and also one of his best. The imagery and emotion in the film are spectacular from beginning to end. The film is of epic proportion and every bit of it was crafted with the greatest deal of care possible. The story is simple, but the movie is filled with symbolism and life lessons that are simply priceless. There is no way that I could begin to describe the richness of this film.


The acting was great in Seven Samurai and added to the already great film. Toshirô Mifune, who is in a lot of Kurosawa's films, steals almost every scene with his quirky and proud presence in the film. The facial expressions by the actors were great and the delivery of the dialogue was superb. The scripting and directing matched flawlessly. There is really not much bad to say about the film. Some may find it difficult to sit through the entire film straight through (its just shy of 3.5 hours), but the reward for watching the entire film is one that you will not often have a chance at.

The Real Deal

Seven Samurai is one of the greatest films of all time and continues to be highly regarded even 54 years after its original release. There was an American remake made in 1960 which I will put in a review blitz, but it did not compare to Seven Samurai. Also, a new remake of the film is in pre-production for 2008. I can only hope that they do not make a remake of the film as there is no way that another director could compare with Kurosawa’s art. Seven Samurai had everything that a classic Kurosawa film has with the imagery, symbolism, and classic facial expressions. If you have not seen Seven Samurai, then you need to.


The Short Version

Raw Score: 937,927
Sharon Movie? Yes