Saturday, May 5, 2012

Seven Samurai - Akira Kurosawa (1954)

This movie was always in my wish list.  After watching Rashoman, and Dreams..my great friend Vikram suggested me to watch this.  The grand marathon movie is of about 3 Hours 26 Minutes classic released in 1954.  Some how the day came in.

This movie is all about the farmers guts to get rid of the bandits who used to torment the villagers at their will. 

As always happens, there were indifference among the villagers to get rid of bandits or feed them on regular basis and plead them not to end the lives.

The grand-dad of the village of the opinion to hire good samurai's who help us only for the meals villagers would provide, and nothing extra.  So few volunteers who were effected by the bandits one or the other way decides to hire the samurai's.  

The movie ticks off from here, the alignment of seven samurai for the task was hillarious, and at the same time..shows the emotional side of the humans as well.  

The finding of the last samurai was the most hilarious one, and from then on he carries the movie on his shoulder.  The favorite actor of Akira Kurosawa steals the show from there on.  He histrionics, body language, dialogue delivery, expression, punch line all worth mentioning.

Breeze camera work, sleek editing, awesome dialogues, and few one liners, and Kurosawa's trade mark rainy shot just takes the breath away. There is not even a single dull moment in the entire length of the movie.


Every character in this movie doesn't act, instead they become the characters itself. 

The plan to stop the bandits, its prepartion, and execution everything had been shot very well.

This movie has some of the best dialogues to ponder over long time

  • Danger always strikes when everything seems fine


  • So. Again we are defeated. The farmers have won. Not us.


  • This is the nature of war. By protecting others, you save yourself. If you only think of yourself, you’ll only destroy yourself.

  • Bandits are coming, you fool. Why worry about the beard, when the head is about to fall?

  • 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.

  • Well — it's impossible to kill 'em all, so I usually run away

  • As a matter of fact, I'm preparing for a tough war. It will bring us neither money nor fame. Want to join?.....may be we die this time!!!!

The last scene, where in two surviving samurai talks to each other saying "we have survived again"...and with a pause "Villagers won...we were defeated again" signifies how the moods of the human changes....

This movie inspired making many movies like The Magnificent Seven,  The Guns of Navarone,  and many more..and our own Sholay...

This movie is about different shades of human beings...A great salute to the master craftsman AKIRA KUROSAWA.