Seven Samurai is a popular 1954 Japanese film co-written, edited and directed by Akira Kurosawa. This film and Akira Kurosawa has influenced a lot of movies worldwide.
The story is set Japan around 1585/1588. A mountain village is approached by a gang of bandits. The bandit chief knew they have stolen from this village and decided that they will wait until harvest. A villager overheard the conversation and warned his fellow farmers. The village chief then advised them to go to the city to find hungry samurais, or masterless samurais who are willing to be paid with rice.
Though I already have an idea of this story by watching the anime adaptation, I still enjoyed watching this. I can see why this film is popular and influencial. According to wikipedia this has influenced the making of one episode for Star Wars.
The story is unique at the time, a story of a samurai helping almost for free, than being hired to kill or protect. The actors were entertaining to watch especially Toshirō Mifune who played Kikuchiyo, his character was almost annoying but shows that he have a good heart and tells the truth on his own way. Costumes were facinating for me, I mean I haven't seen simple costumes like that, I guess there are different samurai attire. The ending is good but a little sad (don't want to spoil anything).
Since I watched this via video streaming the quality of the film isn't that good. Anyway this film is 54 years old already I guess I'm still lucky to be able to watch this good film. There's even this questionable intermission that I guess lasted for 5-7 minutes, there was three different music that was on that intermission. Music is alright but not to striking for me, I guess I was too focused on the story again.
七人の侍, Shichinin no Samurai, Seven Samurai
originally posted: May 18, 2010
