Seven Samurai (1954)

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune

Seven Samurai is easily one of the most celebrated films in history, it was Japan's highest grossing film at the time and it set the standard for filmmaking and storytelling, its influence continues to show in later movies such as The Magnificent Seven (1960) which used the same plot structure but it was a western set in Mexico with gunslingers.

The story is pretty simple by today's standard but in the 1950's it was ahead of its time. Set in Feudal Japan, a defenseless farming village has been harassed and put under constant stress for years by a large group of bandits, about 40 of them. Desperate and tired of the bloodshead, the village makes a decision to send some villagers to a nearby city to find and recruit samurai to fight back, since they're very poor from constant attacks, their only currency is rice. Things don't go well for the poor group as they're turned down left and right by samurai and mocked/humiliated by the city dwellers because of their poverty. Their luck changes when they encounter an wise aging samurai named Kambei, who agrees to help them and in the process he helps recruit more samurai.

The first half of the movie involves the recruiting of the seven samurai, six are recruited originally but a seventh on tags along that technically isn't a samurai, but he is one of the key characters of the movie, Kikuchiyo played by Toshiro Mifune . Each samurai has their own skills, traits and personalities, a classic recurring theme that you will find in many action movies of the past and present. You will have your favorites but they're all great characters that are well acted and each bring their own flare to the film.

The second half of the film is the samurai and villagers preparing the defenses and of course the inevitable battle against the bandits. Not only do the samurai have to prepare the denfeses and train the villagers to fight, but they must deal with the tensions/stereotypes that the villagers have for them which Mifune's character sums up with a brilliant speech that I won't ruin.

The acting in this film is top notch. Toshiro Mifune, and Takashi Shimura (Kambei) dominate the screen but the remaining characters all have their moments especially the samurai, Heihachi is great at keeping the defenders morale high, Kyūzō is the silent and wise but deadly swordsman of the seven, Katsushirō is the young rookie samurai with great ambition, Gorōbei is the archer, and Shichirōji is Kambei's right hand man and a savy reliable veteran. Even the villagers have their moments and there are a few great characters among them, Rickichi, the young hothead who originally suggests defending the village and fighting back, and Yohei, the older more fearful villager who has some great moments of comic relief to ease the tension. A few minor complaints is that the villager characters take a back seat in the second half of the film and the bandits get little to no screen time, and they are treated like one dimensional villains

Seven Samurai has some fantastic action sequences near the end especially but, this is not an action movie even though its influence on future action/drama films was huge. This is a three hour epic, and it does drag at the first half of the movie but the second half really makes up for it, the soundtrack is very simplistic but beautiful and it adds to the suspense really well. The cinematography is great for the 1950's, the night time scenes were some of my favorite parts in the movie, as well as the classic battle in the rain sequence. I appreciate the detail Kurosawa put into the movie with the village scenery, the characters, the storytelling, and the battle sequences.

Its influence on later movies was immense, The Dirty Dozen, Oceans Eleven, any movie that involved the assembling of a rag-tag crew all owe their respect to Seven Samurai. This movie is easily one of those films you have to watch before you die, but be prepared to invest some time into it.

The Verdict: 5.0