Story-telling at its finest, "Seven Samurai" is a terrific film not because of a handful of memorable scenes or lines, but rather because scene-by-scene, frame-by-frame, it tells an interesting story as well as it is possible to tell it. Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is the very apex of cinema. Seven Samurai A veteran samurai, who has fallen on hard times, answers a village's request for protection from bandits.
Seven Samurai is a magnificent, barbaric, Japanese picture maintaining a high level of technical and artistic brilliance which only sheer exhaustion - it lasts two and a half hours - prohibits from. In addition to three months of pre-production, the movie took over a year to shoot, went well over budget and was shut down at least twice by Toho Studios. Unanimously hailed as one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of the motion picture, Seven Samurai has inspired countless films modeled after its basic premise.
Note: This review of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is a condensed / revised version of Dan Schneider's text, which can be read in its original form here. The views expressed in this Seven Samurai review are those of Mr. Schneider, and they may not reflect the views of Alt Film Guide. Synopsis The Mighty Warriors Who Became the Seven National Heroes of a Small Town A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food. Amanda said: A Epic is the only way to describe this film.
Trailer Seven Samurai
Beautifully shot with wonderful characterizations that raise this film above it's genre into the realm of an artistic masterpiece. It might not have a groundbreaking plot. The milieu of Seven Samurai is quite typical, where a bunch of samurais, even those who are inexperienced, come together to fight against evil (Bandits here).
An army of bandits continually raids a poor village for their crops of rice. The town's patriarch advises these villagers to hire a Ronin to help defend their village from the invaders. In my mind 'Seven Samurai' is as close to a perfect movie as can be: it has great writing, superb acting, marvelous cinematography and terrific pacing. Not a single scene is wasted; everything that happens has importance in the overall story.