Seven Samurai (1954) Review
As I sat in my local art house theater for Akira Kurosawa’s samurai epic “Seven Samurai”, I had one major thought running through my head. “These seats are old and uncomfortable. How will I sit through all three hours and thirty-five minutes of this film?” As the trailers rolled by, showing movies that I did want to see in the future, my mind really couldn’t focus on them. It was honed in on the tightness of the seat’s armrests around my sides. Then the title cards ran by, then the opening credits came on with the main title by Fumio Hayasaka being blasted from the theater speakers. The pain and unrest from the seat melted away. The film fully absorbed my attention and I didn’t let go until the title cards came back up to explain we had hit intermission.
Seven Samurai is one of the most influential movies for action directors in the West. From classics like “The Magnificent Seven”, to animated features like “A Bugs Life”, to modern superhero fanfare like “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” the framing and narrative of this film are pretty well known. However, what none of these movies can fully capture is Kurosawa’s innate ability to build a rich compelling world around the action and drama.
The first hour of this film is spent with the villagers looking for any samurai to help them when the bandits come to raid their village again. An attack that is real and coming within the next few months. Kurosawa through straightforward dialog (which was also written by Shinobu Hashimoto & Hideo Oguni with Kurosawa) sets a ticking time bomb that the audience never forgets. We get to watch these villagers reach bustling towns that are much different, and more dangerous than the village they came from. We meet what are typical images of samurai and how they reject these people in need. Then we get an absolutely brilliant scene introducing our main samurai Kambei Shimada (played by Takashi Shimura, one of the two frequent Kurosawa leads). The introduction to this man showcases his cleverness, but also the selfishness that is needed for these poor villagers. From here we’re also introduced to Katsushiro Okamoto played by Isao Kimura and Kikuchiyo played by Toshiro Mifune (another frequent Kurosawa lead). Then the rest of the samurai follow. Gorobei Katayama played by Toshio Inaba, Shichiroji played by Daisuke Kato, and Kyuzo played by Seiji Miyaguchi. Each character comes into the scene fully formed and their introduction scenes provide the audience with clear motivations for why they are willing to potentially sacrifice their lives for these villagers.
The true brilliance of these actors and characters is the way they all learn to get along with each other. Most don’t struggle to do this as the samurai are respectable men, but specifically with Okamoto & Kikuchiyo, these two have such arcs to either grow from boy to man or to show these honorable samurai how much damage they do to the common man without even realizing it.
The next hour is building these relationships between the men, but also developing the relationship with the samurai and the villagers. They come to love these people and instead of most movies riffing off of Seven Samurai, the villagers matter. They are characters that our hearts break over. There is a moment when the samurai are ready to storm out because they’ve learned these villagers have killed samurai in the past. Mifune gets a brilliant monologue explaining that these villagers are evil, they lie, steal, hide their wealth, and kill, but the only reason they are pushed to do so is that samurai like them have come and taken so much from them, that is all they can do. It’s a sobering moment within the film and continues a theme through the Kurosawa films I’ve seen which is violence never really ends, it’s a temporary solution to the problems of our world, but it is the easiest solution.
We reach the third hour which is the battle. Kurosawa’s direction and Asakazu Nakai’s cinematography reaches legendary status. Large framed battle moments that are broken up with quiet tension-building pockets or much-needed humor release. Real character action that we take for granted now is beautifully portrayed by the actors. I found myself at the edge of tears through most of the loss we witnessed for the villagers and the samurai. It would be easy for Kurosawa to wrap up the movie with a few brief scenes after the final raider drops, but he lingers, gives the characters a chance to mourn, and also gives us a chance to see what is the future for these people who have given so much.
There is a lot of discourse about movie length and how movies should never be three hours long, but when you can let a movie breathe. Let a world built with complex politics, personalities, and philosophy, any runtime can be justified. There is not a wasted moment when you’re watching Seven Samurai. — 10/10
