DVD Reviews: Seven Samurai

How do you introduce one of the few films in history which can truly lay claim to igniting the creative fires and imaginations of generations of film makers, actors and viewers alike? Easy, just say out loud: Seven Samurai.

This epic masterpiece made in 1954 is still as exciting, insightful and thought provoking today as when it was made, especially considering it was made with in a time where special effects were non existent. This film has everything you could want in an epic, mad action scenes, a well developed atmosphere, great sound effects, insightful characterisations and an absorbing story line. The real brilliance of this film however, is that we get to know each of the characters in an austere and period relevant manner which has a twofold effect of setting the scene for the movie and garnering audience empathy with the characters.

Overall, this film has such an amazing array of strengths that's its hard not to get overexcited and classify this as one of the greatest ever. So before I gush on any further about how great this film is, I'll outline the basic plot. (Ill only give a general description of the plot as I want to leave you the pleasure of discovering the nuances of the film as you watch it).

The scene is 16th century Japan, location unspecified. A village of poverty stricken farmers are being raided each year by bandits and they fortuitously find out when they next they will be raided. The farmers decide to do something relatively unheard of, they attempt to hire some samurai to fend off the bandits. However, they only have rice to offer, which is not much considering that at the time samurai were essentially the law unto themselves. Eventually they end up hiring 7 rag tag samurai to defend the village.

The farmers are initially afraid of the samurai who don't really know how to interface with the farmers, but it is the samurai, Kikuchiyo, who is able to break the barriers and unite the two groups to help them work together. Without giving away too much more, there are several brilliantly depicted skirmishes before the deciding battle, in which only three samurai survive, and the farmers are saved. Along the way secrets of both the farmers and samurai's are exposed and a clearer picture of the interwoven relationships develops.

I have to say that as far as fight scenes go, there are very few films that have so few fight scenes, yet can get away with genuinely being a martial arts epic. This is a good thing as it brings more meaning to each fight scene and grants insight into the minds of the players. The final battle definitely ranks as one of my favourite fight scenes, and has one of the most amusing yet strangest moments in cinema history. It involves Kikuchiyo (Mifune) running around fighting madly with all his heart in the pouring rain, wearing only protective head, chest and shin gear and a Japanese g string. But it gets crazier, he's using a sword far too long for stand up fighting (the sword he uses is actually designed for use whilst riding a horse), which only adds to the wackiness of the scene!

Kikuchiyo's character was the standout performance for my money, amongst a cast of very solid acting performances. His character is the glue that binds the samurai to the farmers and his defensive posturing is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Quite amazing!

All in all a brilliant film, one that if you've never seen before you'll kick yourself for not doing so.

This is the first time the full length version has been available to west. Some of the scenes in the first half of the film were deleted to make it more palatable to our "shorter attention spans".

The extras are pretty slim. They are two short trailers on Kurosawa and another one of his films Yojinbo, and finally a eastern eye collage of upcoming features.

I would have thought that considering the special nature of this film a longer trailer on Kurosawa or a profile of the famous actor Mifune would have been relevant.