Chinese Version

Seven Samurai (Japan)

Japanese Western Movie

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Cast: Takashi Shimura   Toshiro Mifune

Footage: 204min

Year: 1954

Seven Samurai illustrates the collapse of social distinctions and the growing irrelevance of old traditions in dangerous and chaotic times. It also questions the division between samurai and bandit, between good and evil. 

The film opens with master samurai Kambei posing as a monk to save a kidnapped farmer's child. Impressed by his selflessness and bravery, a group of farmers begs him to defend their terrorized village from bandits. He agrees and assembles the other six samurais as partners. Together they consolidate the village's defenses and shape the villagers into a militia, while the bandits loom menacingly nearby. Soon raids and counter-raids build to a final bloody heart-wrenching battle.

The peasants' choice of the samurai over the bandits is merely one of a lesser evil. Once the bandits are gone, the samurai will no longer be needed. This is underscored in the film's poignant end, when the surviving three samurai leave the village, receiving neither acclaim nor reward, as the villagers plant rice.

References:

Seven Samurai (GARY MORRIS)

Seven Samurai (Todd Doogan)

SEVEN SAMURAI: CRITERION COLLECTION

Seven Samurai (Ian Haydn Smith)

Seven Samurai (Jaime N. Christley)

Works of the same director:

Kagemusha