Ich vergebe die Note A.

I wouldn't say I was blown away (It's almost impossible to be when you've waited this long to see such a highly regarded film), but as a whole, it still stands as a pretty damn great movie.

It's a simple storyline, but I thought that the plot really exemplified the basic themes of human dignity, courage, etc. shown by the samurai way of life that now ceases to exist... you could even take that one step farther and say many of these basic themes of goodness and dignity that the samurai show have been forgotten by us as a people, people act more like the bandits now.

What I really loved about the film and wasn't expecting coming in, was the humor and charm to it. All the samaurai seem to have a vibrancy and life to them... they're genuinley charming company to spend a movie with. I was also listening to a bit of the commentary, and it's pretty clear Kurosawa was wise enough to know that when dealing with a 3 and a half hour film, you have to be conscience of your audience's attention. Thus he was able to consciencely alternate between quicker and slower paced scenes to keep control of the audience's attention, and insert scenes of comic relief whenever the film threatened to drag its dramatic heels. Shakespeare and Hitchcock did the same thing.

And that leads me into Tishiro Mifune's performance as Kukichiyo... which I honestly think might be one of the best male performances I have seen in a film. It's one of those roles where you know it's totally over the top and theatrical, but he's so damn commanding and so charasmatic that you can't help but love it. He's not only the funniest and most entertaining samaurai, but the most human and full of heart as well. The movie really wouldn't have worked half as well without Kukichiyo.

All the acting in general is pretty great, with Kimura capturing youth and discovery of the world, Shimura showing the older, wise version of him, etc. One of my only complaints with the movie is that a few of the samaurai are underdeveloped. After Kukichiyo, Kambai, and Katsushiro, there's a big drop-off... especially the wood-chopping one, he doesn't seem to get much screentime at all. But I guess with a 3.5 hour film it'd be impossible to give equal care to all, and there's not many scenes I would cut from the ones he did include, so I guess it's all good.

Just mentioning a few more shots I loved in the movie, I loved the long shots of the men crawling through the rivers to and from the screen, the grove with the flowers, the close-ups of the two women, the drunk Kukichiyo in the barn and the origianl confrontation between Kambai and Kukichiyo, the first funeral and the flag waving, and of course the battles and climax in the village... actually there's probably plenty more I could've thrown in there too. One of the signs of a great film or a great director is when every scene seems as important and great as any other, and this is most definitley true with Kurosawa in Seven Samurai. You could take just about any shot in the film and rave about it.

The more I think and write about this movie, the more I like it, actually. It's definitley one of those deserving of its reputation.

5/5.

A great movie and this brought us the very good Magnificient Seven and its great soundtrack > but why is this true???? > Seven Samurai is frequently described as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made

Watch THRONE OF BLOOD.

I'll confess to not being much of a Kurosawa fan, but Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood are tasty, tasty treats.

Ikiru and Ran are Kurosawa's best.

The cool samurai is the best and it is a great film.


Who would of thought a black and white picture that is set in Japan with subtitles would still be seen as of the best films even today?


Just tells you how good it is.

hello, i have seen every kurosawa film and this one is the best but a few others come close (z.b. ran and dersu uzala, but also not so much known ones to the general public such as high and low and the bad sleep well and ikiru are extremely good and many more, i would say he has about 10 masterpieces among his 30 films and 10 more very good movies and then 10 decent ones, especially from his very very early career pre-1948 when he was not yet the kurosawa he would become afterwards (starting with yoidore tenshi and the mifune/shimura collaboration going all the way to 1990 with yume (there are two others afterwards, madadayo and rhapsody in autumn), while you can divide his career from 1948 to 1990 into 2 parts: 1. 1948-1965 (yoidore tenshi until red beard), the mifune (and often shimura) collaborations starting with mifune as a young patient in yoidore tenshi while shimura was the middle aged doctor and ending with mifune as the middle aged doctor in red beard (1965), during that time he made roughly one film a year sometimes two per year and among them were regularly masterpieces, 2. 1965-1990 (dodesdukaden from 1970 was the first one here until yume (1990)), the post-mifune period where kurosawa released exactly one film every 5 years meaning he had slowed down alot but this was mainly due to financing problems and among those 5 films he released where another 3 top-notch masterpieces on par with the ones from the first period, namely dersu uzala, kagemusha and ran; dodesdukaden was his only letdown film in that period and nearly led to his suicide (along with the financial problems and more), yume was a good swan song).

Really long, but thoroughly engaging. Mifune, especially, is at his best here.