Seven Samurai

The action genre dominates much of my blog but I had overlooked that much of what we enjoy today owes its success to highly acclaimed Seven Samurai from 1954. I had already seen and enjoyed The Magnificent Seven, which is a direct remake, but Akira Kurosawa's classic sat waiting patiently on my watchlist for quite a while so it was time to sit down and experience this in all its 207 minutes of running time.

The story sees a small and impoverished Japanese village that is regularly preyed on by a group of vicious bandits in 1586. Times are getting very hard on the villagers and so they decide to seek out hired support from an aging samurai who takes to the idea of protecting the innocent. And, as the title would suggest, we see seven samurai take up arms to defend the villagers despite the odds being stacked against them.

This is my first Kurosawa film and I went in knowing what to expect having the seen the western remake but that did not diminish my enjoyment in the slightest. I would say though that this is a very long film and might not appeal to all but, just after a quick bit of research, there is so much here that would go on to influence cinema worldwide. And if you have the patience, this is a brilliant action film of epic proportions and is just so much fun to watch if you give it time. Kurosawa is not one to rush his story but I wouldn't call this a slow film either and I know I will enjoy it even more when I come to rewatching it in the future.

Seven Samurai earns its reputation as a classic but you might need to split your viewing across two nights given the hefty running time. Hollywood owes so much Kurosawa and I will look forward to seeing more of his films in the future. Any film fans with this sitting in their watchlist would be remised to overlook this one which gets an easy recommendation.