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Seven Samurai (1954)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast overview: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
Running time: 207 minutes
This is the first Kurosawa film I've watched, and, as Japan's arguable most famous director, perhaps I should've got round to him far sooner. The film itself is essentially a Japanese precursor to the US blockbuster The Magnificent Seven. It centres around a small village who hire seven samurai to defend themselves from attacking, violent bandits. Nice, simple story on paper.
There are a few complaints I have with the film. Firstly, the running time. It's well over three hours, and it really did get excessive for me. The length of the film actually diluted the quality of the film, for me - I suppose you could argue that it's an epic but it didn't even have that power for me as it's a fairly ordinary story that doesn't require such a running time. I found my attention wavering on more than one occasion, though that's not that unusual for me. Not to mention that I found it such slow, difficult going. The characters seemed fairly one-dimensional, the plot was predictable (though it was a decent story, I just don't think it was well-done), and I thought the acting was really poor, often boring on the hammy and the melodramatic.
I find these Japanese films really difficult to sit through in general - I have found Kurosawa's High and Low, which I'm planning to watch and think that will be more to my liking, being a detective thriller and all. If I don't like that, I think I'll give up hope of liking Japanese cinema. It's not foreign cinema - the French Army of Shadows, for example, is an excellent film. I guess perhaps Japanese is a lot more inaccessible.
So, apologies if I've offended anyone, but I just didn't much enjoy this. Maybe I should stick to those low-grade American films! I think perhaps these are best watched as stylistic pieces and artefacts - films rather than movies is perhaps the best way of describing them, I think. They may be found entertaining by some, but not by me. At least, not this one. I think Kurosawa is overrated from what I've seen so far.
Quotes
Kikuchiyo: What do you think of farmers? You think they're saints? Hah! They're foxy beasts! They say, "We've got no rice, we've no wheat. We've got nothing!" But they have! They have everything! Dig under the floors! Or search the barns! You'll find plenty! Beans, salt, rice, sake! Look in the valleys, they've got hidden warehouses! They pose as saints but are full of lies! If they smell a battle, they hunt the defeated! They're nothing but stingy, greedy, blubbering, foxy, and mean! God damn it all! But then who made them such beasts? You did! You samurai did it! You burn their villages! Destroy their farms! Steal their food! Force them to labour! Take their women! And kill them if they resist! So what should farmers do?
[sits and weeps in the corner]
Kambei Shimada: [after a long pause] You were the son of a farmer, weren't you?
Kambei Shimada: So. Again we are defeated.
[Shichiroji looks puzzled at Kambei]
Kambei Shimada: The farmers have won. Not us.
Kambei Shimada: Go to the north. The decisive battle will be fought there.
Gorobei Katayama: Why didn't you build a fence there?
Kambei Shimada: A good fort needs a gap. The enemy must be lured in. So we can attack them. If we only defend, we lose the war.
Trivia
Akira Kurosawa's original idea for the film was to make it about a day in the life of a samurai, beginning with him rising from bed and ending with him making some mistake that required him to kill himself to save face. Despite a good deal of research, he did not feel he had enough solid factual information to make the movie, but came across an anecdote about a village hiring samurai to protect them and decided to use that idea. Kurosawa wrote a complete dossier for each character with a speaking role. In it were details about what they wore, their favorite foods, their past history, their speaking habits and every other detail he could think of about them. No other Japanese director had ever done this before.
Kurosawa designed a registry of all 101 residents of the village, creating a family tree to help his extras build their characters and relationships to each other.
After months of research, all of the seven major characters in the film wound up being based on historical samurai who once existed.
Trailer
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Cast overview: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura
Running time: 207 minutes
This is the first Kurosawa film I've watched, and, as Japan's arguable most famous director, perhaps I should've got round to him far sooner. The film itself is essentially a Japanese precursor to the US blockbuster The Magnificent Seven. It centres around a small village who hire seven samurai to defend themselves from attacking, violent bandits. Nice, simple story on paper.
There are a few complaints I have with the film. Firstly, the running time. It's well over three hours, and it really did get excessive for me. The length of the film actually diluted the quality of the film, for me - I suppose you could argue that it's an epic but it didn't even have that power for me as it's a fairly ordinary story that doesn't require such a running time. I found my attention wavering on more than one occasion, though that's not that unusual for me. Not to mention that I found it such slow, difficult going. The characters seemed fairly one-dimensional, the plot was predictable (though it was a decent story, I just don't think it was well-done), and I thought the acting was really poor, often boring on the hammy and the melodramatic.
I find these Japanese films really difficult to sit through in general - I have found Kurosawa's High and Low, which I'm planning to watch and think that will be more to my liking, being a detective thriller and all. If I don't like that, I think I'll give up hope of liking Japanese cinema. It's not foreign cinema - the French Army of Shadows, for example, is an excellent film. I guess perhaps Japanese is a lot more inaccessible.
So, apologies if I've offended anyone, but I just didn't much enjoy this. Maybe I should stick to those low-grade American films! I think perhaps these are best watched as stylistic pieces and artefacts - films rather than movies is perhaps the best way of describing them, I think. They may be found entertaining by some, but not by me. At least, not this one. I think Kurosawa is overrated from what I've seen so far.
Quotes
Kikuchiyo: What do you think of farmers? You think they're saints? Hah! They're foxy beasts! They say, "We've got no rice, we've no wheat. We've got nothing!" But they have! They have everything! Dig under the floors! Or search the barns! You'll find plenty! Beans, salt, rice, sake! Look in the valleys, they've got hidden warehouses! They pose as saints but are full of lies! If they smell a battle, they hunt the defeated! They're nothing but stingy, greedy, blubbering, foxy, and mean! God damn it all! But then who made them such beasts? You did! You samurai did it! You burn their villages! Destroy their farms! Steal their food! Force them to labour! Take their women! And kill them if they resist! So what should farmers do?
[sits and weeps in the corner]
Kambei Shimada: [after a long pause] You were the son of a farmer, weren't you?
Kambei Shimada: So. Again we are defeated.
[Shichiroji looks puzzled at Kambei]
Kambei Shimada: The farmers have won. Not us.
Kambei Shimada: Go to the north. The decisive battle will be fought there.
Gorobei Katayama: Why didn't you build a fence there?
Kambei Shimada: A good fort needs a gap. The enemy must be lured in. So we can attack them. If we only defend, we lose the war.
Trivia
Akira Kurosawa's original idea for the film was to make it about a day in the life of a samurai, beginning with him rising from bed and ending with him making some mistake that required him to kill himself to save face. Despite a good deal of research, he did not feel he had enough solid factual information to make the movie, but came across an anecdote about a village hiring samurai to protect them and decided to use that idea. Kurosawa wrote a complete dossier for each character with a speaking role. In it were details about what they wore, their favorite foods, their past history, their speaking habits and every other detail he could think of about them. No other Japanese director had ever done this before.
Kurosawa designed a registry of all 101 residents of the village, creating a family tree to help his extras build their characters and relationships to each other.
After months of research, all of the seven major characters in the film wound up being based on historical samurai who once existed.
Trailer