ENDED

(1954) In 16th century Japan, as proud samurai end up as masterless, wandering ronin when their lords win second prize in the endless civil wars, and farmers are prostrate under the heel of marauding bandits, a village patriarch counsels resistance. How? Hire samurai, “hungry samurai.” That’s the premise of Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai, as under the calm leadership of Takashi Shimura, that magic number enlist for a war against 40 mounted bandits, their only pay a few handfuls of rice. Motives are mixed: loyalty to Shimura; lust for perfection of swordfighting skill; on-the-job training for an inexperienced rich boy; or, for Toshiro Mifune’s manic clown Kikuchiyo, a burning desire to prove himself a samurai. But they all end up at the same place, a poor village, the site of some of the most hair-raising battles ever committed to film (the rain-drenched epic finale called for 6 pump trucks to provide the deluge), a graveyard for some, a coming-of-age for others.

An epic production, Seven Samurai cost as much as 7 normal Grade A productions - its original 3 month shooting schedule stretching to a year - and brought Toho Studios to the brink of bankruptcy. Twice the money ran out, and Kurosawa filmed the final battle last, reasoning nobody could pull the plug on him with the climax unshot. The eventual worldwide success not only kept the studio in business, but eventually made Seven Samurai one of the most influential films of all time, from direct and indirect adaptations (The Magnificent Seven to A Bug’s Life); plot elements (bad guys deciding to aid the rebels, assembling the team for a hopeless mission); to editing techniques (slow motion for action or pain), but nothing can top the original. Kurosawa’s orchestration of swords, spears, arrows, men, horses, rain, wind, and mud; blazing tracking shots; giant close-ups; chiaroscuro lighting; telephoto lenses that put us underfoot as horses crash amid struggling men; deep-focus shots that render the tip of a sword poking into the lens equally clear with scurrying figures fifty feet away; transitions that effortlessly whip us from scene to scene; and ensemble performances that give three-dimensionality to the most minor of bit players, topped by Mifune’s eventual transition from manic goofball to tortured, self-hating tragic hero. Voted in the 1979 Kinema Jumpo critics’ poll as the Best Japanese Film ever. New subtitles by Linda Hoaglund capture the rawness of the language for the first time.

A JANUS FILM RELEASE

• Click here to read Roger Ebert’s review of SEVEN SAMURAI from his list of The 100 Great Movies.

Available at Amazon: A Hundred Years of Japanese Film by Paul Schrader (Foreword), Donald Richie

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