The Seven Samurai (1954)

The Seven Samurai (1954)

starring Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura

directed by Akira Kurosawa

207 minutes

The villagers of a small farming community hire a group of Samurai to defend their village from a gang of bandits who have promised to return once the grain has been harvested to take lion's share of what the villagers gather up.

There are basically three acts to this film. The first focuses on the recruitment of the samurai, the second on the preparation of the village for the return of the bandits, and the third on the fight with the bandits. There is a little more to the story such than that. Most notable to me was the maturation of the youngest of the samurai which is expressed both through his relationships with the other samurai and his romance with one of the women from the village.

Thoughts

This is the second time I have seen this film, but the first time I have seen it in the theater. I first saw in Dec 2003.

This film is the definition of epic.  It is almost three-and-half-hours in length. It probably took a good hour or more for the group of samurai to assemble and make their way to the village. The film didn't drag in the last bit, despite the length. The only time I checked to see how much time had passed was during the intermission.

The film is at times very visual. There are a number of extended scenes that are all or almost completely without spoken words. The cinematography is quite often breathtaking.

There were numerous moments, especially deep in the movie, that moved me emotionally. It is an ensemble piece but Toshirō Mifune's character is the main character even though he is not the leader of the seven samurai. I kept waiting for him to change, and while he does show different sides of his character he never really changes.

Notes

I have seen all the actors who played the seven samurai (Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Daisuke Katō. Isao Kimura) in other films. All of them were in either of two other Kurosawa films: Yojimbo (1961) or Throne of Blood (1957). A few of them were in both.

There are several other actors who have been in other movies I have seen including Kamatari Fujiwara, Bokuzen Hidari, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Kokuten Kōdō, Eijirō Tōno, Atsushi Watanabe. Tatsuya Nakadai had a very small role in this film (blink and you miss him) which is amusing to me because this movie was presented as part of a Tatsuya Nakadai retrospective.