This isn’t going to be a traditional review of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. If I’m being perfectly honest here, there’s really not a whole that I can say about this film that hasn’t been said before and said better. I don’t think I would actually be able to bring anything new to the table. Seven Samurai is one of, if not the greatest film of all time. You see in a lot of interviews these days about film-makers whose inspiration goes all the way back to George Lucas with Star Wars. The truth of the matter is, is that Mr. Lucas himself was inspired heavily by the likes of Akira Kurosawa. In fact, the movie that helped inspire Star Wars was Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. That doesn’t mean that elements weren’t borrowed from Seven Samurai, however. If you look at the scene transitions in Star Wars in the way that it wipes to left, that comes directly from Seven Samurai. If you look at all the big action epics, fantasy, and science films, you’re going to find that most of them owe their existence to Akira Kurosawa. In fact, a lot of Westerns from the 60s onward are heavily inspired by Kurosawa’s films. For example, The Magnificent Seven with Yul Brynner is a Western remake of Seven Samurai. It’s the same basic story, but set in a Western. A lot of dialogue in many of these films is also lifted from Samurai.
The story in Seven Samurai involves a village in Japan that is constantly under attack from bandits, so they hire a group of samurai warriors to help them defend their land. That’s the story in a nutshell. What makes it so special, however, is the depth and richness of the characters. Each samurai in the film is fully fleshed out and feels like a real person. Even Kikuchiyo, an outcast with a very large sword, who isn’t a samurai, is given enough screen time to let the audience know why he is the way he is, and why he resents samurai in general. The peasants are also given proper attention. The idea was to get the audience to learn about these characters so when they are in danger, we fear for them. That’s good writing. There’s a good amount of time devoted to trying to get enough samurai together to help the villagers. We see some samurai training, but what the film also shows us is that like in real life history, not all samurai acted honorably. In fact, there was one samurai who was a great swordsman, but he refused to join up because he was only going to get paid with food. The film shows us how flawed these people are and that makes them more human. A story can be as simple as Seven Samurai, but when you pay attention to the characters, it adds so much more to the experience.
While the acting is actually really good across the board, the real showstopper here is Toshiro Mifune as Kikuchiyo. He was given free reign to improvise on the spot by Kurosawa, who normally doesn’t normally allow that in his movies, but for Mifune, it works. For a good chunk of the film, we see this guy with a huge sword acting drunk and being all sorts of goofy, but over the course of the film, the layers are peeled away and we begin to see why he is the way he is. One of my favorite moments in the film is when he shows the other samurai the armor and weapons that he and the villagers found. After being denounced for that, he confronts the samurai about how their social class treated villager and farmers. Historically, it’s true: The samurai didn’t necessarily treat the lower classes with a whole lot of respect, despite the necessity of these “lower” classes. This moment in the film is an extremely emotional moment and highlights the range that Toshiro Mifune had as an actor. Not only that, there were moments where he displayed absolute fearlessness, such running down a steep hill, which was crazy.
The cinematography here is absolutely wonderful. It’s not just the camerawork that’s incredible, it’s how Kurosawa captures certain elements. There isn’t an element or shot in the film that isn’t significant. From the way wind blows to the rain fall, there’s a beautiful visual poetry that is on display. The way Kurosawa moves the camera is also extraordinary. When a camera is moving, he doesn’t cut away until the camera stops. In essence, that camera movement is telling its own story in that space of time, it has a beginning, middle and an end. Look at this shot of a funeral here. There’s no dialogue, but you know what’s going on. The details are also important. Look at the way wind is blowing by observing the dust on the hill. In a Kurosawa film, it’s often the smaller details that are most important. The same goes for the action that’s happening on screen. The way the camera moves when it’s following the bandits or the samurai. It’s all handled extremely well, and you can see what’s going on. It does get hectic after a while, but again, that’s on purpose. Kurosawa wants to show us the ugliness of war, even during the time of the samurai. The craftsmanship on display here is beyond exceptional. Seven Samurai is the work of a true master. For a movie that’s three and a half hours long, it doesn’t feel like it. The pacing is PERFECT.
The impact that Akira Kurosawa and his films have had on modern day cinema and pop culture can’t be overstated. Without Kurosawa, we wouldn’t have superhero movies. We wouldn’t have films like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dirty Harry, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, or even modern samurai films like The Last Samurai. His influence reaches beyond Western cinema. It’s felt all over the world. If it’s from China, Russia, or the United Kingdom, it’s been impacted by Akira Kurosawa in some fashion. Famous film-makers like Martin Scorsese have stated that they’ve learned about real film-making from Kurosawa’s films, and it’s evident in nearly everything that they have made. There’s not a film-maker out there today that doesn’t use a technique pioneered by Akira Kurosawa. I don’t think I’d be writing about movies if it wasn’t for Kurosawa. It’s really hard to imagine a world and film industry that wasn’t impacted by his movies. I can’t really give Seven Samurai a score of any kind, because the film is transcendent in nearly every way. It is a landmark film that has not only stood the test of time, but people are continuing to discover it to this day. That, my friends, is the power of film and the power of Akira Kurosawa. If you have any passing interest in movies, Seven Samurai is REQUIRED viewing.