This is one of the best-produced films. THE SEVEN SAMURAI contained a lot of attacks and retreat. The whole film was a completion and satisfaction. You can only get the point after watching several times. The original film was 3 hours’ long. There were still short ones of 161 minutes, 155 minutes and 148 minutes. The year of 1600 was a dangerous era. That was the three-kingdom period. The powerful samurai period began to decay. These samurais once dedicated themselves to the rich and the royal family. It ended then. A small village was attacked by the robbers and the villagers could not protect themselves. A retired samurai Shimura who did not have enough money to have a meal came to the village. The villagers asked him for help. Shimura called the other six men and began to teach the villagers how to protect themselves. In the film, every samurai was quickly been introduced and we knew whom they were and what did they do. Each of them had a hobby. The villagers welcomed the samurais very much. Kimura fell in love with a local girl while the others keep distance with the villagers. It seemed they didn’t want to set up a good relations between them and their employers. In order to reward the meals, they taught the villagers how to attack back. This two kind of people had different aims. The villagers just wanted to protect themselves and their wealth. The samurais fought only for their honor. The last samurai Mifune called himself a qualified samurai. In fact he was a farm’s son and eagerly wanted to be accepted by others. The robbers came. It was a great fight. It stimulated the audience with the sad scene on the screen. At last, the villagers won. Only three samurais were alive. The villagers began to plow for the next year while the three men looked at the grave of their dead comrades.
Though this was a very simple story, it contained a deep meaning. Beside, it used film technique. Compared with the power of this film, any deep meaning was not very important. It was released in America as THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. It was necessary to change a name because it was the same name with one of John Sturges’ film. Kurosawa admitted he wanted to produce a west type film. The audiences would find something, which can compare with what John Ford, Howard Hawks and some other people produced. This film was always loved by the audiences. The beautiful fighting and horse riding pictures always surprised the audiences. (It took one year to produce and once be stopped by lack of money and horses.) Each act and each role were carefully described. We felt very sad when they were killed. Mifuneru removed his mask as a samurai and admitted he was a farmer’s son. He gave a powerful speech. He presented the greedy nature of the farmer. They would lie and deceive and pretend to be poor. In fact, they are devil, and unbelievable. His speech was so exciting with cry, laugh, scream in it and the mood of love and hatred. America producer Lou Morheim got the re-produce privilege. Sturges insisted himself to be the producer and director of the American THE MAGIFICENT SEVEN which was a splendid translation. The American audiences should appreciate this Japanese film which presented produced method a film should achieve. It won the Oscar best foreign language prize in 1956 and the silver-lion Venice prize in 1953.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Produced by Shojiro Motoki
Written Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni, Kurosawa
THE CAST: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Inaba, Seijij
EVALUATION:★★★★★
Rrnning Time:200m
Language:English
Subtitle:Chinese, English
B&W/Stereo/1954
4:3/DVD-9 |
