Seven Samurai
- Jul 23
- 2 min read
The story goes that before Steven Spielberg directs a new film, he recharges his inspiration by always rewatching the same four movies—four movies that, for him, are the greatest ever made. They are: Lawrence of Arabia, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Searchers, and Seven Samurai.
Made in 1954, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai has been cited by director George Lucas as his all-time favorite movie, the one that most influenced him when first creating Star Wars.
Set in 16th century Japan, Seven Samurai is a genuine grand-scale epic. With a running time of three and a-half hours, it’s about a village of poor farmers being tormented and driven to starvation by an army of bandits who repeatedly raid and steal their crops. Helpless to defend themselves, the desperate villagers pool their meagre resources and hire a small team of samurai to help protect them when the bandits strike again.
If the storyline sounds familiar it’s because Seven Samurai was remade twice in Hollywood as the western
The Magnificent Seven, first in 1960, with an all-star cast, and then again in 2016 with Denzel Washington. But much more than that, Seven Samurai is the film that essentially gave birth to one of the most enduring genres in film history; stories about a team of professionals who come together for a dangerous mission.
Westerns, war movies, crime stories, you name it…the classic narrative DNA born in Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai can be found in countless action films produced from 1954 til now.
Kurosawa staged his action sequences unlike anything that ever been attempted on film before.
And the movie’s thread of influence doesn’t stop there. Kurosawa staged his action sequences unlike anything that ever been attempted on film before. Using multiple camera set-ups and innovative editing, he thrust viewers into the chaos of the sword-wielding action with a new kind of pulse-pounding sense of realism. The clashes between the bandits and the heroic seven samurai are so epic and breathtaking—especially the climactic battle in a driving rainstorm—that the choreography of action moviemaking was forever changed, influencing generations of filmmakers to come, around the world.
And the film is equally rich with vividly drawn characters and powerful themes of honor, responsibility, and sacrifice for the greater good. The movie’s blend of personal drama and epic, grand-scale storytelling is masterful and profoundly moving. The seven samurai warriors are on a mission to save not only the villagers, but also to perhaps save and redeem their own weary, battle-hardened souls. As the leader of the samurai says to the others: “This is the nature of war. By protecting others, you save yourselves. If you only think of yourself, you’ll only destroy yourself.”
With a cast led by the charismatic Toshiro Mifune and the magnetic Takashi Shimura, I give Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai four out of four-stars.
