| | | A film by Akira Kurosawa.
Features: DVD
"One of the most beloved movie epics of all time, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabits hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This three-hour ride - featuring legendary actors Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura - seamlessly weaves philosophy and entertainment, delicate human emotions and relentless action into a rich, evocative, and unforgettable tale of courage and hope."
""The greatest action movie ever made."" Desson Thornson, Washington post
Editor's Note
Set in 16th Century Japan, Akira Kurosawa's epic SEVEN SAMURAI follows the plight of a defenseless farming village that lives in constant fear of marauding bandits. The farmers know that when their crops are harvested, the thugs will attack, so four men go to town in hopes of employing samurai to fight for them. However, the poor villagers can merely offer payment in the form of shelter and a daily bowl of rice, and initially only Kambei (Takashi Shimura), a brave elder samurai, and his eager young apprentice, Katsushiro (Isao Kimura), take up their cause. Encountering various nomadic warriors on the streets, they slowly put together his team of swordsmen, recruiting Shichiroji (Daisuke Katô), Gorobei (Yoshio Inaba), Heihachi (Minoru Chiaki), and Kyuzo (Seiji Miyaguchi). Finally, Kikuchiyo (Toshirô Mifune), a scruffy wanderer who has been trailing them, completes the small band of ronin. However, upon reaching the village, the samurai learn that the farmers fear them as much the enemy. Despite the tensions, Kambei and his men slowly train the peasants to defend their village. Eventually the warriors launch a preemptive strike against the bandits, and begin a series of intense conflicts that culminates in a rain-soaked final battle--without a doubt, one of the most stunning sequences in cinema history.Widely considered to be the greatest Japanese film ever made, Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI is also credited with pioneering the modern action movie. This notion is especially evident in thrilling scenes such as Kambei's rescue of a kidnapped child, Kyuzo's duel, and Kikuchiyo's intensive theft of an enemy gun. Although the film clocks in at more than three hours, the story remains consistently engaging and slowly heightens the tension while providing action, drama, comic relief, and character development. Gleefully running amuck, Mifune gives one of his most renowned performances, imbuing the often comical Kikuchiyo with a surprising streak of melancholy and introspection. However, it is Shimura that anchors the entire film as the thoughtful and courageous Kambei, who stoically takes on the leadership of an almost impossible task. A monumental achievement in filmmaking, Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI is cinematic perfection in nearly every aspect, giving the production its much-deserved status as one of the best films ever created.
| Features | 50-Minute Making-Of Documentary: Akira Kurosawa - It Is Wonderful To Create | | All-New Restored, High-Definition Digital Transfer | | Audio Commentary By Japanese Film Expert Michael Jeck | | Audio Commentary By Scholars David Desser, Joan Mellen, Donald Richie & Stephen Prince | | Audio: Japanese Dolby Digital Mono | | Essays By Peter Cowie, Philip Kemp, Kenneth Turan & Sidney Lumet | | Interactive Menus | | New & Improved English Subtitle Translation | | New Documentary: Seven Samurai - Origins & Influences | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English | | Theatrical Trailers & Teaser | | Two-Hour Conversation Between Kurosawa & Nagisa Oshima |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Image |
| Release Date: 9/5/2006 |
| Running Time: 207 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1954 | | Catalog ID: 1649 | | UPC: 00715515019927 | | Number of Discs: 3 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: Japanese | | Available Audio Tracks: Japanese | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: B&W |
Aspect Ratio | | Standard 1.33:1 [4:3] |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (1957) | | | Oscar, So Matsuyama , Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White | | | Oscar, Kohei Ezaki, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White | |
Nominee (1956) | | | British Academy Awards, Seven Samurai, Best Film from any Source | | | British Academy Awards, Toshiro Mifune, Best Foreign Actor | | | British Academy Awards, Takashi Shimura, Best Foreign Actor | |
Winner (1954) | | | Venice Film Festival, Akira Kurosawa, Silver Lion Award |
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| | Professional Reviews | Los Angeles Times
"...Witty and surprisingly reflective....The result is a good little action picture with plenty of smarts and a nonchalant air..." 04/26/1988 p.C2Chicago Sun-Times
"...Akira Kurosawa's THE SEVEN SAMURAI is not only a great film in its own right, but the source of a genre that would flow through the rest of the century..." 08/19/2001 p.4 USA Today
"...THE SEVEN SAMURAI is still a movie that matters..." 05/11/2001 p.12E Premiere
"...[A] forceful action movie, perhaps most startling because its heroes never lose sight of their honor and humanity..." 12/01/2003 p.9 New York Times
"[S]till one of the most stirring adventure stories in the movies..." 09/05/2006 p.E3 Rolling Stone
4 stars out of 4 -- "[A]n adventure film with a complex emotional core -- that Hollywood has been imitating for years." 09/21/2006 95 TV Guide 10 of 10
"Much imitated, still unsurpassed. By critical consensus one of the best movies ever made, The Seven Samurai covers so much emotional, historical, and cinematic ground that that it demands to be viewed over and over again."
Village Voice 9 of 10
"Rich in detail, vivid in characterization, leisurely in exposition, this 207-minute epic is bravura filmmaking -- a brilliant yet facile synthesis of Hollywood pictorialism, Soviet montage, and Japanese theatricality that could be a B western transposed to Mars." - J. Hoberman
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