Seven Samurai (film)

• Release Date: 1954
• Director(s): Akira Kurosawa
• Writer(s): Shinobu Hashimoto; Akira Kurosawa ; Hideo Oguni
• Principal Actors and Roles: Toshiro Mifune (Kikuchiyo); Minoru Chiaki (Heihachi); Yoshio Inaba (Gorobei Katayama); Daisake Kato (Shichiroji); Isao Kimura (Katsushiro); Seiji Miyaguchi (Kyuzo); Takashi Shimura (Kambei Shimada); Keiko Tsushima (Shino)

Seven Samurai was a Japanese drama film released in 1954 by Toho Studios and directed by Akira Kurosawa, who also served as the film’s editor and one of its screenwriters. The film takes place in Japan in the 1500s, a time of much social and political turmoil, and tells of a group of samurai who vow to protect a poor farming village from raiding bandits.

Seven Samurai was director Kurosawa’s first true samurai film, the first of many in this genre for which he would become internationally acclaimed. Kurosawa’s initial idea for a samurai film was to chronicle a day in the life of a samurai, but in his research, Kurosawa read about many samurai who would defend farmers and villagers from raids, inspiring him to depart from his original idea and craft a new story. Kurosawa assembled a writing team that included two screenwriters, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, with whom he had previously worked on his 1952 film, Ikiru. The trio retreated to a secluded location for about six weeks to develop the film’s screenplay that, in its preliminary form, was titled Six Samurai, and only included six of the final film’s characters. However, the screenwriters realized that this draft lacked any eccentric characters to add interest, and revised the script to include the character of Kikuchiyo, the seventh samurai. For this prominent role, Kurosawa cast Toshiro Mifune, a Japanese actor who Kurosawa had helped make famous and would work with on a total of fifteen films.

Seven Samurai was both a popular and critical success at the time of its release, and became a cinema classic that would go on to inspire many future films. Today, the film is considered the greatest Japanese film of all time, as well as a masterpiece in filmmaking.

Plot

Seven Samurai takes place in sixteenth-century Japan, where a group of bandits has their sights set on a poor farming village in the mountains. The bandits have raided this particular village before, but on the chief’s orders decide to postpone their attack until after the harvest. Unbeknownst to the bandits, a local villager overhears these plans and hurries back to his people to inform them of what he has just learned. It is decided that the village’s best chance at survival of a raid is to seek the protection of samurai. The village is too poor to offer monetary compensation to any samurai, so the villagers journey to the city in hopes of finding hungry samurai who will accept food as payment.

Many of the samurai who are approached scoff at the lack of payment, but just as the villagers are about to lose hope, they witness a ronin (a samurai without a master) named Kambei expertly rescue a young boy from a thief. Impressed with his skills, the villagers ask Kambei to defend the village. He accepts and with the help of his young apprentice, Katsushiro, recruits four more samurai, all with varied strengths and personalities. Despite his initial plan for seven total samurai, the six set out for the village, and are followed by the humorous Kikuchiyo, whose help Kambei rejected. When the samurai arrive at the village, they are disappointed by the lack of warm greeting they receive, as the villagers hide in their homes. The villagers finally run into the street, begging for the samurai’s assistance, when a false alarm of danger is set off by Kikuchiyo. His clever stunt helps him gain favor and acceptance by the other samurai and it is soon revealed that Kikuchiyo is the orphaned son of a farmer. The samurai and the farmers slowly develop a trusting relationship as they construct protections for the village and prepare for the encounter with the bandits.

During the bandits’ raid on the village, several samurai are killed, but Kambei’s defense strategy is generally successful. In the final push, Kikuchiyo is mortally wounded defending a fellow samurai, but kills the bandit chief before dying. In the end, the villagers are victorious, but the three surviving samurai mourn the loss of their comrades.

Significance

Seven Samurai was shot over the course of one year, although only less than half of this time was actually spent filming. The film’s original budget was only projected to cover a shoot about a quarter of this length, and Toho Studios repeatedly shut down the production because of the unexpected costs. Kurosawa remained confident that production would resume, however, because so much had already been invested in the film. Part of the escalated costs was attributed to Kurosawa’s refusal to build a set of the farming village in a studio. He insisted that a complete set be built on location, which he justified as being crucial to the authenticity of his actors’ performances.

Despite Kurosawa’s budgetary disputes with Toho Studios, the studio provided the director with a lot of creative leeway. Kurosawa used telephoto lenses to shoot much of the film’s action sequences, a technology that was not at all common when the film was made. In addition, Kurosawa employed multiple cameras placed in strategic locations, which helped create the feeling the audiences were in the middle of all the battle scenes. All of these moving parts made the shooting process complicated, and required that Kurosawa meticulously plan every detail ahead of time. Kurosawa, who also edited the film, did so during nights after filming had finished—a process that most directors reserve for once the entire film’s shoot has wrapped.

Due to the film’s extremely long production time, its reputation preceded its release, creating heightened anticipation. The film’s final budget came out to $350,000, making it the most expensive Japanese film in the country’s history at the time. Seven Samurai was both a commercial and critical success, and upon release in Japan, the film grossed 268 million yen, and went on to be one of the top grossing films in the world in 1954. In addition to its monetary success, the film influenced many American western films of the time, and The Magnificent Seven, released in 1960, was adapted from the Japanese film.

Awards and nominations

Nominated

• Academy Award (1956) Best Costume Design (Black-and-White): Kôhei Ezaki
• Academy Award (1956) Best Art Direction-Set Direction (Black-and-White)

Bibliography

Cardullo, Bert. Akira Kurosawa: Interviews. Jackson: U of Mississippi, 2008. Print.

Mellen, Joan. Seven Samurai. London: British Film Inst., 2002. Print.

Pepperman, Richard D. Everything I Know about Filmmaking I Learned Watching Seven Samurai. Studio City: Michael Wiese, 2014. Print.

"The Seven Samurai (1954)." Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Turner Entertainment Networks, 2015. Web. 20 Aug. 2015. <http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/89649/The-Seven-Samurai/>.

Yoshimoto, Mitsushiro. Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema. Durham: Duke UP, 2000. Print.