Seven Samurai (The Criterion Collection) [4K UHD]

There are few directors who have had close to the lasting legacy that Japanese Akira Kurosawa has had. There have been many excellent film directors who have had a great influence on other directors, TV, Films and pop culture like George A. Romero, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick and Quentin Tarantion, but none has had the impact that Kurosawa has had on people, the media and pop culture and even these outstanding and influential directors were influenced by Kurosawa and his films and perhaps Kurosawa's greatest masterpiece and influential film is the Seven Samurai.The 1954 film is considered one of the most influential and best films on all time that has a lasting impact that has stood the test of time as well leaving an indelible mark on the entertainment world, but the film more than a excellently written story full of Samurai, action and drama as it deals with heavier topics than that as the Seven Samurai takes place in 1587 during the "Warring States Period". Since before the Ōnin War (1467-1477) the Ashikaga Shogunate was in decline as Japan had erupted into a continuous civil war as lords fought for power. By then 1587 Japan was in total chaos which caused the rise of ruthless warlords, bandits, wondering Ronin (Samurai warriors without masters) rape, pillaging, death and class conflict which Kurosawa showcases in the Seven Samurai. The great script co-written by Kurosawa starts out in a small farming village in the mountains. The citizens of the village learn of a band of bandits plan to raid their village when their harvest is complete later in the year and take all the harvest and food they had worked so hard on during the year. Some of the villagers want to search for and hire some Ronin samurai, but others don't want outsiders like the samurai in the village and would rather appease the bandits, and even if they agreed to hire some samurai how could they pay them. The village was just some poor mountain farming village with nothing of real value to the likes of samurai. The village elder Gisaku (Kokuten Kodo) makes a decision to hire some Ronin Samurai, but only to "find hungry samurai." as the elder puts it. A small group of villagers goes in search of some hungry samurai, but get turned away again and again at every village and town they travel to until they meet the samurai Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura) a veteran and battle hardened samurai. It takes the villagers some time, but they manage to convince Shimada to help them and Shimada and the villagers go about recruiting other samurai for the mission. Shimada brings together a rag tag team of five other samurai along with the wannabe Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune).The samurai team and villagers travel back to their village, but are not hailed as heroes and saviors and instead looked upon with distrust and suspicion. The villagers are wary of the samurai who they believe will eat what little foot they have left, sleep with their daughters and even take what they want like they bandits will who the villagers have hired the samurai to protect them from. The situation quickly worsens when the samurai learn that the villagers have robbed and killed other wondering Ronin, but it is Kikuchiyo who understands the villagers plight and puts his comrades in place explaining that the villagers have suffered so many hardships because of the noble and warrior classes that the villagers have been forced to do what they have to survive. Shimada and his fellow samurai come to a truce and begin to prepare for the coming raid of the bandits and through this begin to understand and even respect each other. When the bandits come the samurai and villagers are ready as they battle each other for two days and nights until the samurai and villagers manage to defeat the bandits, but at a high price for the samurai, for only three have survived in Kambei Shimada, Katsushirō Okamoto (Isao Kimura) and Shichirōji (Daisuke Katō). With their mission complete the three remaining samurai begin to leave the village with little or nothing to show for it and losing their friends and comrades, but Shimada and the three stop and look down at the village and the villagers who have gone back to their farming ways as if nothing has happened and then at the graves of their fallen comrades and says "Again we are defeated. The winners are those farmers. Not us."It is a fitting end to the Seven Samurai. The story is beautifully written and put to film, but admittedly when I first saw the Seven Samurai on AMC at the age of fourteen I didn't understand or know exactly what was going on. In school history classes didn't teach much about Japanese history outside of World War II, so all I had to go on was what I saw in films and anime. Still that didn't keep me from falling in love with the film. Who doesn't love samurai and a film about them along with action and killing? That along with the story made this one of my favorite films of all time and eventually made the Seven Samurai the greatest film of all time or at least in my opinion. With age came better knowledge and understanding of the film and the themes in it. Kurosawa's story does an exceptional job of showing off the tumultuous time period in Japanese history and the class conflict that came to life because of it. The lower class and poor felt betrayed, used and abandoned by the nobles and upper class of Japan as they used them for soldiers, taking their crops and taxing them with getting little or nothing in return yet Kurosawa's story also wonderfully display's their misconceptions on both the villagers and samurai's sides as well as showing both are human also. The lasting legacy from the Seven Samurai story in that it is the first film and one of the first stories about bringing together a group of men or women for a mission, and films and filmmakers have been using that concept since in the likes of The Dirty Dozen, Ocean's Eleven, The Guns of Navarone, A Bugs Life, Ronin and countless others. I guess I should point out a flaw with the story, which is extremely hard to find, but if there was one thing I could find is that the film is long at a running time of over three hours and methodically paced and I could see how some people might not like this style of filmmaking. I guess that is a flaw for some, but it isn't for me as the length and pace of the film didn't bother me at all.While the story was excellent, it would not have been so good without the remarkable acting by the Japanese cast. Takashi Shimura was outstanding as Kambei Shimada the wise leader as did Daisuke Katō who played Shichirōji another veteran samurai and Shimada's friend and lieutenant. Katō easily showcased his wonderful acting ability especially at the end of the film when he figured out he the war torn and battle hardened samurai had survived while all his younger comrades had perished. You could just tell from his display of emotion that he would have preferred to die in their place and to be honest I think he wanted to and maybe expected to die. Keiko Tsushima does a splendid acting job as Shino the daughter of a villager who falls in love with Katsushirō (Isao Kimura). Perhaps the backbone of the cast is Toshiro Mifune who played Kikuchiyo. Kikuchiyo is a would be samurai from a common birth who dreams of coming a samurai. Kikuchiyo is a lively and temperamental man who while wanting to become a samurai he also has come from the lower class and understands their plight. Mifune brilliantly brings his character to life and is perhaps the best all-around character in the film and that is lofty praise since all the characters are well written and all the actors and actresses to a tremendous job in their roles.With his direction of the Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa demonstrates the epitome of filmmaking. In the Seven Samurai Kurosawa shows growth is his directorial leadership, writing and organization from his earlier films such as Ikiru, The Quiet Duel and Rashomon. Akira Kurosawa helped write a unique and original story demonstrated his craft and leadership as he brought the story, actors, music and cinematography together perfectly to create an artistic masterpiece. With the Seven Samurai, Kurosawa truly put his stamp on filmmaking for generations to come.What more can be said about the Seven Samurai besides near that it is near perfection in filmmaking, but the Seven Samurai is more than that as it showcased a tumultuous Japan and the class conflict it brought with it along with an excellent and original story with compelling characters, beautiful cinematography and wonderfully choreographed action. People were captivated by the samurai of Japan before the Seven Samurai, but with the Kurosawa's Seven Samurai the samurai and their way of life were brought to the eyes of the world and the growing film audience in the United States and around the world. That is just one of many things that came out of the film along with the other points I talked about earlier, like the influence of the story as well as directing and filmmaking. I know the Seven Samurai is one the most beloved films of all time, but for me it is the greatest film of all time, and if the Kurosawa had never made the film I don't think we would have films like Star Wars, The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch and The 13th Warrior, or at very least they would be very different from the films we have today. I without a doubt highly recommend the Seven Samurai, and is a must if you are a true fan of movies and the filmmaking process.

Seven Samurai is widely considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. The problem with timeless classics is that sometimes the legacy becomes bigger than the movie itself, and it gets placed on this pedestal that nothing can ever actually live up to. I tried to keep that in mind when watching this movie and not expect something unreasonable. With that perspective, I still have to say this is easily one of the best movies I have ever seen.The movie takes place in feudal Japan, primarily in a poor farming village. When a farmer happens to overhear that a gang of bandits plan to raid the village after their harvest, there is a huge uproar and the village is consumed with despair. They eventually decide to travel to a nearby city to find some samurai to assist them. Bit by bit they assemble a team, until they travel back to the village and prepare everyone for the upcoming raid.The depth of the movie is not done justice by a concise plot summary, though. The movie really explores its themes very well. The film examines class roles during feudal Japan, and not just “peasants good, bandits bad, samurais badass” as we might expect. For instance, when the samurai first come to the village, the villagers themselves hide and act only a little less scared of the samurai than the bandits. There is a lot of tension there and the film doesn’t really paint either group as “right”, but more so just shows them playing the social roles society expects and what influence that really has on them.Another idea this movie meditates on is that of combat. At first when we are introduced to the samurai in the movie, they are these impressive, noble figures. But as the movie goes on, we get a closer look at them and see that fighting is who they are. We see that being a "badass" isn’t something to emulate, because in the end all you’re left with are memories of loss and pain and you can never really be a part of the celebration. Your existence is just being involved in one conflict to the next until the day you die.A lot of these concepts sound familiar, and that’s because they are. This movie was made in 1954 and has (along with other Kurosawa films) influenced cinema in countless ways, as well as inspired movies based directly off of it (ranging from Magnificent Seven to A Bug’s Life). There are so many things you’ll see in this movie that you’ll recognize from other movies, from cinematography techniques to plot devices, to themes, that I couldn’t even begin to list them here. Luckily, these are all executed with such nuance and skill that the movie never feels outdated. This movie is still great even by today’s standards.Part of the reason the movie has so much depth is because of its length. At two hundred and seven minutes (that is three hours and twenty seven minutes), this movie goes on for quite a while. Even with long movies that I love there are usually points where I feel like the movie is dragging. This movie, however, is extremely well paced. None of the scenes included in the movie feel like fluff and everything is told in a grounded, yet interesting way. This is a movie that uses its long length to its strength (heh) and not to its detriment.The cast also does a fantastic job. Each person really played their roles well, especially Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune, who are two actors Kurosawa collaborated with very often. Combined with excellent writing, the samurai are very compelling characters, though some feel a little less compelling than others. The villagers with named roles also do a solid job in all their rolls.While it is hardly a significant part of the film, the action is also well done. There is nothing flashy or gritty about the fighting that goes on in the movie. There are no crazy jumping attacks, duels between masters of the sword, fancy techniques, or lone samurai taking on an army single handedly. Just people rushing at each other with swords and spears. I personally liked it, but its definitely a matter of personal taste.In the end, this movie is one that has definitely earned its reputation as a “timeless classic”, which is no easy feat. Just be sure to remember that when you tune into this you’re still watching a movie and not some transcendent manifestation of artistic perfection. With all that in mind, this movie really has everything you could hope for, from light hearted to melancholy moments. Because of both the depth and breadth of this movie, it transcends its genre and therefore gets a 5.

This has been one of my favorite movies for over four decades. I first saw it while in college (as it was all but required for film students, UT would run it in the on-campus theaters a couple of times a year).While I have seen it numerous times in the theater, and innumerable times on VHS and DVD, all of those viewings were from very old, washed out, beat up prints, or from videos/DVDs made from such prints. Indeed, the old Criterion Collection copies were of an edited version for the US market.This new 4K restoration finally allowed me to see the entire 210 minutes of the movie exactly as Kurosawa intended. The digital restoration / enhancement is astounding and perfect. The sound track has also been cleaned up, and the subtitling is much better / more accurate as well.Note that to watch it in 4K, you’ll need a DVD player that supports UHD (conventional BluRay players don’t), as well as of course a 4K TV. But with all that in place, we can all finally see one of the very best movies of all time as the director intended. Highly recommended.