Seven Samurai

Saving a town with your buds is the new sex

Seven Samurai is long; it is brutal; it is not always easy to follow. But it is magnificent. This sturdy tale of action pictures the Japan of centuries ago in one exquisite shot after another.

At first, the film seemed rather trivial to me. And that’s not surprising I suppose, because it was roughly 70 years after its first appearance in the moment when I was writing this comment. But it is just an illusion in the beginning... The real movie, in my opinion, started when villagers met Kambei.
As we can see, the main idea is not only a reflection of the pure kindness of these seven samurais, when nothing is offered in return to them. For me personally, the main idea is to represent a real war… Even though we see it as very simplified, because of only entire struggle occurs only around one village, tactics and strategy in this film show us the reductional form of the real war. We can see sadness due to the loss of friends, we can see fear before the fight, we can see sympathy in willingness to help, and we can see disputes internally when it is necessary to unite for the sake of a common external enemy. The last one is exactly what often happens in real life…
However, the most important moment is the last quote, in my opinion. "We lost. The peasants are the winners, not us." - says Kambei. The samurai did not get anything. Vice versa, they have only losses… Their brothers… The peasants live on... They have nothing to worry about now, even about these samurais who survived… And that’s also about the real war… When a war is over, civilians have nothing similar with solders… They simply don’t need them…

The storytelling is just 🫡

Seven Samurai is a black and white classic set in feudal Japan. It might be a tough watch today, but it remains a groundbreaking film that shaped the action and samurai genres. Kurosawa’s storytelling and cinematography still inspire filmmakers worldwide.

like fine old wine