SEVEN SAMURAI Akira Kurosawa

Oscar Movies

Toshiro Mifune, Seven Samurai

By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica

Some films get better after repeated viewings. Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 black-and-white drama Shichinin no samurai / Seven Samurai is one of them. It fully deserved winning that year’s Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, as well its Academy award nominations for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (black and white) and Best Costume Design (black and white). Additionally, Seven Samurai became an international sensation and it’s reported to have been the highest-grossing Japanese film of its day. [Note: Spoilers ahead.]

On first view, Seven Samurai is simply a great action film; but with subsequent viewings, the finer points of characterization come through, subliminally and purposefully seeping into the viewer’s mind. The story, at nearly three and a half hours in length (including a five-minute intermission), is never weighted down with fat, as all of the many subplots bear fruit — so unlike most Hollywood films made today.

Yes, there are remnants of the stale samurai genre, such as the wise man Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura), the "boy on the verge of manhood" Katsushiro Okamoto (Isao Kimura), and Katsushiro’s romance with a farmer’s daughter. Thus, it is the central human dilemma of the sixteenth-century farmers, helpless against the depredations of the bandits who abound during the civil wars of the era, that raises Kurosawa’s film above mere clichés.

We only see the bandits at the beginning and at the end of the film. None of them is a Darth Vader despite George Lucas‘ latter-day attempts to cite Seven Samurai as an influence for his puerile Star Wars saga.

Also worth noting is that there are about two hours during which the meat of the tale takes place and not a bandit is in sight. How many films do away with their bad guys for so long? How many could afford to? Since we do not know any of the bandits’ names, they seem more like a singular character or perhaps a sheer force of nature. Why do they keep coming to attack the villagers, even as their forces are successively thinned with each failed raid? Shouldn’t they have realized that the once helpless villagers have hired defenders?

A good portion of Seven Samurai is spent on the fortifications of the village — the building of walls and moats that allow the battle scenes to take place on familiar territory for the viewer. When we see something occur, we know as quickly as the villagers where a bandit will come from or head to, and what is likely to happen. How many epics are just a whirl of motion and bodies with no way for the viewer to place the action in spatial context?

Meanwhile, we learn that the villagers are neither as poor nor as innocent as they pretend to be. There are murderers among them, some of whom have killed samurai before. They also seek to lowball and underpay their protectors.

Besides, we learn that the samurai are not all noble — they are men, not gods. They work for meager wages, and technically they are all ronin, or samurai without masters. Think of the Knights of the Round Table had they not been under King Arthur’s charge. Some will even cut wood for a bowl of rice, if need be.

Would-be samurai Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune) — the name is an assumed one — vents his anger at the fact that the rottenness of the samurai class forces the farmers to be craven and duplicitous. To him, the samurai are little better than the bandits, for they have killed and raped farmers and their women, and have forced them into servitude. That’s why Manzo the Farmer (Kamatari Fujiwara) obsesses over his daughter Shino’s disguising herself as a boy, so as to protect her from bandit and samurai alike.

Another Seven Samurai peculiarity is the introduction of Western modernity in the form of guns. Most samurai films show the samurai winning with superior skill in swordplay. Kurosawa’s film, however, shows four of the samurai killed by gunshot. Not only does that detail reinforce the sense of "unfairness" about their demises, but, unlike other samurai films, it also adds realism to the proceedings.

As a final observation on the film’s realistic approach to the story, Kurosawa shows the three surviving samurai leave the village with little to show for their work, save their honor and war tales. The villagers can live in peace, if only for a time, while they must go seek employment on the road without four of their brothers in arms. There is no Hollywood ending, or cheap emotional payoff. Seven Samurai refuses to condescend — and this is part of its greatness. (The ending is softened somewhat in John Sturges‘ 1960 remake, The Magnificent Seven.)