“Seven Samurai” Review

Seven of Japan’s finest actors came together to star in Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” an epic about the titular warriors who defend a village from bandits.

One of the hardest things I’ve tried to convince people to do is to watch foreign films. For some reason, Americans really have a hard time reading subtitles despite other nations doing the same for American films. To ignore foreign cinema is to ignore incredible stories that have inspired filmgoers and filmmakers alike. If there’s a foreign film that I consistently recommend for its action, character and influence, it’s the 1954 Japanese masterpiece, “Seven Samurai.”

Set in the late 1500s, Japan is a lawless state where bandits raid villages, taking everything humble farmers have. When one village realizes that they’re going to be attacked, they hire seven samurai who unite the villagers and inspire them to fight the bandits.

If you look at my About page, you will see that one of my favorite directors of all time is Akira Kurosawa. After making unfulfilling propaganda films in war-torn Japan, Kurosawa made a huge splash in 1950 with “Rashomon,” which won the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion. What followed was an illustrious career of amazing films, many of which are seen on lists of the greatest films of all time. While I am a massive fan of Kurosawa’s filmography, “Seven Samurai” is not only his best, but my personal favorite.

I actually didn’t watch “Seven Samurai” until 2020 because I was somewhat intimidated by watching it. It’s a three-and-a-half hour long film that is shot in black-and-white and is told in Japanese. But within the first 20 minutes, I was in love. This film has held up extraordinarily well and is perfect to contradict people who claim old and black-and-white films are boring. 

The character development of “Seven Samurai” is some of the best I’ve ever seen because you immediately understand these character’s motivations but want to dig deeper. Each of the seven is memorable and adds a new flavor to this group. Kambei (Takashi Shimura) serves as the level-headed leader and keeps the entire village united. 

When some of the villagers don’t want to protect the entire village and instead defend their own homes, Kambei lays down a simple philosophy: “By protecting others, you save yourselves. If you only think of yourself, you'll only destroy yourself.” Shimura had already starred in several Kurosawa films like “Rashomon” and “Ikiru” and he once again delivers a fantastic performance. 

Other samurai include the trusty lieutenant Shichiroji (Daisuke Kato), the skilled archer Gorobei (Yoshio Inaba), the lively Heihachi (Minoru Chiaki) and the great swordsman Kyuzo (Seiji Miyaguchi) who are all unforgettable. In most action films of today with such a large cast, these people would be simplified to make for a shorter running time but Kurosawa never compromises when it comes to his characters.

Kurosawa also knows how to make characters that the audience can especially relate to. The youngest samurai, Katsushiro (Isao Kimura), has never seen the horrors of war and he becomes baptized with blood when he devotes himself as Kambei’s disciple. Several villagers are also points of interest for the audience including the hot-headed Rikichi (Yoshio Tsuchiya), who first suggests to the village to fight back after losing everything to bandits, and Yohei (Bokuzen Hidari), a cowardly old man who must find it within himself to become a warrior. 

Toshiro Mifune’s performance as Kikuchiyo is the finest of his career and results in one of my favorite characters of all time.

And then there’s the great actor Toshiro Mifune who plays the seventh samurai, and one of my favorite characters in all of film, Kikuchiyo. Toshiro Mifune is one of the greatest actors that has ever lived and I think he can stand toe to toe with the likes of John Wayne, Denzel Washington, Daniel Day Lewis and Sidney Potier. Mifune’s movement was so precise and his delivery was so powerful that he could get across an emotion very quickly.

“The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three,” wrote Kurosawa in his autobiography.

Unlike the other samurai, who are classically trained and have a sense of honor, Kikuchiyo has come from nothing and has an unbridled anger towards the world. When he first joins the samurai, he’s seen as a joke but manages to prove himself as both a warrior and a person. 

When the samurai grow angry when they find the armor and weapons of slain samurai, Kikuchiyo rants at them about how the samurai have made life for farmers incredibly harsh just like the bandits. It’s one of the most powerful scenes in the film and nearly any actor with a persuasive rant in a scene, like Denzel Washington in “Training Day,” Peter Finch in “Network” or Daniel Day Lewis in “There Will Be Blood,” owes it all to Mifune. 

Besides co-writing and directing “Seven Samurai,” Kurosawa also edited the film and his entire direction for it is fast-paced excitement. One of the biggest selling points I can think of when trying to get my fellow Americans to enjoy the film is how heavily Kurosawa was inspired by John Ford (director of “Stagecoach,” “The Searchers” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”) and the film feels very much like a western.

When I was watching a review of the film by Chris Stuckmann, I realized that Kurosawa always has something moving within the frame. Whether it’s a character, the elements or horses, there’s always a feeling of motion which works incredibly well for the film’s action. 

While the first two hours of “Seven Samurai” is dedicated to character and showing the samurai interacting with the villagers, the last hour-and-a-half is all about the action with the samurai and villagers fighting these bandits. The action continuously builds on itself with a series of small fights leading up to the final confrontation in the rain. The horrors of war are on full display with intense action, swords flying and characters dying. No one is safe and people you love will die which makes the story all the more engaging. 

Akira Kurosawa’s energetic work as a director make his films, all told in Japanese, perfect for modern American audiences.

Despite being an older film, it’s accessibility for modern audiences has lasted through the years. Kurosawa’s influence can be felt across the world of film with most popular filmmakers (George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese) having cited him as an influence. His work has been the subject of countless remakes and homages with “Star Wars” being based off of many of his films, particularly “The Hidden Fortress.” “A Fistful of Dollars” is a remake of “Yojimbo” while nearly any film that tells its story out of order and uses different narrators owes it all to “Rashomon.” 

“Seven Samurai” has been remade the most with “The Magnificent Seven,” both the 1961 original and the 2016 remakes, being an adaptation set in the west while television series like “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “The Mandalorian” adapting the story for episodes. But all of these remakes and adaptations, while good in their own right, can’t come close to what “Seven Samurai” is: one of the greatest films of all time and a gold standard for action epics.