Review of Seven Samurai (1954) by Ben L — 18 Sep 2016

Setting up a story that would be reinterpreted hundreds of times by other film-makers, this original film from Akira Kurosawa is certainly epic. At three-and-a-half hours quite a lot happens, much of it is action-packed, but there are definitely some slower moments too.

I actually didn't mind any of the times the action slowed down because they did such a superb job of establishing characters and making me care about what they were going through. The truly shocking thing about Seven Samurai is that this might be the first movie where I enjoyed the building of the team scenes more than the execution of their mission.

Slowly meeting each one of these samurai, and getting to know their individual personalities was wonderful. I struggled at times to differentiate the farmers from one another, but the samurai were the real leads of the film and I felt like I knew every one of them.

The climax in the final act had some really great and satisfying moments, but there was also a lot of repetition. I felt that the small moments of one-on-one battle were infinitely more powerful than these huge masses of people running around and spearing each other.

I even lost track a few times of who was killing who in those battle sequences. I think there is a lot of brilliant stuff going on in this movie from a cinematography, costuming, and effects standpoint.

It makes the movie look so alive and exciting. Just looking at the final shot makes you realize why this movie is so iconic. Seven Samurai is groundbreaking, and I suspect I might enjoy it more if I watch it again in the future.

However, as I start to explore other films that reused the same story structure, I wonder if I will find that it's just easier for me to get attached to a shorter film where I don't have to read subtitles.

That doesn't take away from this movie, but it shows how shallow my movie opinions can be sometimes. This is definitely a movie that I think movie fans should watch, even if it's just to see where all these ideas came from.

Also the story is structured in such a way that, even though Seven Samurai is really long, you could easily watch it in smaller chunks without missing much.