Seven Samurai war movie

Seven Samurai (1954, Japan)

Original / alternative title: Shichinin no samurai

Categories: knights movies siege movies

Seven Samurai

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Czas: 205 minut

Laguages: Japanese

war movies infoAdam 'Frey' Barczynski
1970-01-01 / 1970-01-01

Desperate villagers hire seven samurai to protect them from the bandits.

In medieval Japan secluded village in the mountains is harassed by the horde of bandits that come back from time to time and steal all their food. The farmers are poor and completely helpless on their own, but they come up with a plan that is their last hope - they send few men to search for unemployed samurais that could protect them. But since the vilalgers have nothing to offer to potential guards, apart from already limited sources of food, they try to find hungry and desperate samurais that would be willing to work for food. They are witnesses of aging ronin (samurai without a master) Kambei saving a small boy from hands of thief that held him hostage. The villagers were so impressed with what they saw that they approached Kambei to become their guard. Despite initial reluctance he agrees and helps the villagers to find other candidates. Together they find 6 warriors, who set out to travel to the village, but soon notice that samurai Kikuchiyo, that they actually turned down, is following them. He becames the seventh of the samurai. But while arriving to the village the samurai find the inhabitants very distant and distrustful, to that point that they have sent away all of the women from the village to keep them away from the samurais. Soon it is apparent that seven samurai will not be enough to defend the whole village, so Kambei prepares a plan.

Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, considered one of the greatest movies of all time, is actually also a very good war movie presenting not only the samurai way, the 16th century Japan, but also quite interesting look on the strategy to defend the village. The success of the Japanese movie was of course soon copied by Hollywood with the plot transfered to western reality where seven gunmen are trying to defend the poor village from raids of local bandits in The Magnificent Seven (with impressive cast - Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn). Not to mention that later they made sequels (Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, The Magnificent Seven Ride) and even a parody (Three Amigos). The Seven Samurai is definitely worth seen, even if not as war movie, then as one of the finest movies in history.

Our rating

9.2

Film value

10 / 10

Realism factor

5 / 5

Adventure factor

5 / 5

Historical accuracy

3 / 5

1970-01-01

Seven Samurai full movie

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