Classic epic ,though overlong , Kurosawa's masterpiece and at the time it was Japan's most expensive picture ever

ma-cortes

This is a superior and enduringly popular film , considered to be a real classical movie .The film gets action in Western style , thrills , intrigue , human relationships , it's fun and entertaining . Kurosawa's vintage pic set in 16th century Japan , a small farming village beset by marauding attackers hires 7 professional Samurai to rid of the scourge. As a group of villagers go to the nearly town where find Kambei : Takashi Shimura , who has carried out a risked rescue of a baby taken hostage by a nasty bandit . As Kambei walks towards town a young samurai, Katsushiro : Kimura , asks to become his acolyte. Then the farmers ask Kambei to help defend their village; to their great joy, he accepts. Kambei, with Katsushiro's assistance, then enlists four samurai more from the city, . Kambei initially decides that seven masterless samurai , Ronin , would be necessary to recruit , and time is running short . The villagers beg him to take Katsushiro also and, with some prodding by the others, he agrees . A clownish samurai named Kikuchiyo : Toshirô Mifune , whom Kambei had rejected for the mission, follows them to the village at a distance , ignoring their protestations and attempts to drive him away. The team gradually come together and 7 Samurai , at last , one by one, each with distinctive skills and personality traits ; all of them to help a poor village against savage thieves .As Kambei and his buddies , each of whom comes for a different reason , must free a village attacked by heinous outlaws who are devastating the small location . All of them get a chance to redeem themselves . Later on , the bunch develops a plan to secure the villagers defend it against enemy attack .

This is a magnificent picture by Akira Kurosawa starred by his ordinary actors Toshiro Mifune , and Takashi Shimura , being his international breakthrough one . Sweeping , dramatic , complex human drama with all the ingredients : suspense , action , comedy , character studio and many other things . Seven Samurai , the picture blends drama , violent fights , emotion , slaughters with high body-count and results to be pretty entertaining as well as thought-provoking . It is incredibly detailed vision in its own right , as the impact of the action and combats on this trail-blazing adventure film opened the floodgates for the huge numbers of samurai films and subsequent Spaghetti Westerns that made fortunes for their producers in the sixties and early seventies . Dramatically staged sword-plays occur on and off throughout the plot . The story is classic and traditional , following its interesting premise in subsequent remakes , rif-offs and sequels , including customary misfit band formed by an eclectic gang with diverse characters as well as speciality . Kurosawa took an elemental Western issue ¨good guys against bad guys¨ plot and turned it into a breathtaking classy which is still probably the best-know and one best Samurai film to come from Japan . At the time of its making it got a big success at the boxoffice around the world . Kurosawa's pacing is immaculate and allows for periods of calm in which to establish roles punctuated by viscerally thrilling burst of action . These culminate in the overwhelming climatic battle between the bandits and the samurai which ranks among the very nicest combat scenes ever put on movie . It is followed by several reboots and imitations . Standing out ¨The magnificent seven¨ by John Sturges . Unlike Sturges' remake in 7 Samurai the roles grow originally from the action and they are not conveniently established by star-casting , like in the American film formed by big actors as Yul Brynner , Charles Bronson , James Coburn , Robert Vaughn , Brad Dexter , Elli Wallach . Very good acting by Toshiro Mifune as a valiant Samurai , as he is a harebrained but courageous young dominating warrior , as well as Takashi Shimura as the intelligent and brave leader of the fabulous Samurai . This one made an international star out of Toshiro Mifune .

This fiercely-charging , uncompromising picture was compellingly directed by Akira Kurosawa and being exhibited with subtitles or dubbed .After working in a wide range of genres, Kurosawa made this awesome film . And available in a big number of versions of varying length , all too long . Kurosawa's previous and subsequent years saw the low-key , touching Living (1952) , this great epic The seven samurais (1954), the barbaric , fascinating Shakespeare adaptation Throne of blood (1957) , a Macbeth's version , a masterful rendition that transports the story to Medieval Japan , and a fun pair of samurai movies Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962) , and Rashomon , often credited as the reason the Academy created the "Best Foreign Film" category. When this film was released internationally to rave reviews, many speculated that Akira Kurosawa was influenced by Citizen Kane (1941) in the element of flashbacks that ultimately provide conflicting accounts of events. However, Kurosawa didn't even see Orson Welles's film until several years after . Rashomon won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and first revealed the richness of Japanese cinema to the West.Yet , there was a quieter side to Kurosawa's nature , expressed most succinctly on Living , The Lower Depths and especially the medical drama Red Beard . After a lean period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, though, Kurosawa attempted suicide . Other important movies were : The idiot based on Feodor Dostowieski , Drunken Angel , Scandal , A quiet duel , Tiger's tale , High and low . He survived, and made a small, personal, low-budget picture with Dodes'ka-den (1970), a larger-scale Russian co-production Dersu Uzala (1975) an epic tale of adventure in turn-of-the-century Siberia and , with the help of admirers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, the samurai tale Kagemusha (1980), which Kurosawa described as a dry run for Ran (1985), an epic adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear" . He continued to work into his eighties with the more personal Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990), and Madadayo (1993) and Rhapsody in August . Kurosawa's films have always been more popular in the West than in his native Japan, where reviewers have viewed his adaptations of Western genres and authors with suspicion , but he's revered by American and European film-makers, one of his least well-known films but most agreeable pictures is The Bad Sleep Well , a transposition of an Ed McBain detective novel , being remade many his pictures such as The seven samurais (1954), as The magnificent seven (1960),The Hidden Fortress (1958), as Star Wars (1977)as Yojimbo (1961) as For a fistful of dollars by Sergio Leone (1964), in fact Kurosawa's style was the biggest single influence on the Spaghetti Western sub-genre ; as his Samurai 'Western's were copied not only in America but also in Italy . Rating : 7.7/10 . Better than average . Well worth watching .

score 7/10

ma-cortes 27 February 2019

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4689135/