Japan, 1954
Directed by Kurosawa Akira
With Shimura Takashi (Kambei), Mifune Toshirô (Kikuchyo), Katô Daisuke (Shichiroji), Chiaki Minoru (Heihachi), Kimura Isao (Katsushirô), Inaba Yoshio (Gorobei), Miyaguchi Seiji (Kyûzô), Tsuchiya Yoshio (Rikichi), Fujiwara Kamatari (Manzo), Kôdô Kokuten (Gisaku)
At the end of the 16th century, as Japan is still gripped by political infighting and chaos, the peasants of a small village must cope with a huge gang of bandits who regularly raid their village, pilfering their fields and houses. Stung by the outburst of one of them, Rikichi, who thinks it is high time to put up a fight and get rid of the bandits, the peasants grudgingly decide to hire samurai to protect them. The move is startling: in the Japanese social hierarchy, warriors rank far higher than peasants and put their skills at the service of power and glory. How could these poor farmers get the samurai they need, despite the claim by their elder, Gisaku, it did happen before not far from their quaint village?
The first part of “Shichinin no samurai – Seven Samurai” is amazingly fast-paced and dramatic in visual terms: it begins with a titles sequence where characters are playfully slanted and music’s rhythm hypnotic; then come the silhouettes of the bandits scurrying across a dawn-lit hilly landscape in a carefully composed wide shot; and finally there is that long, emotional meeting of the villagers who are torn apart by dismay, anger, and resignation, a terrible confusion high-angle shots and close-ups capture powerfully. It reveals a zest and a flair that are would thankfully go on unabated.
As the quest begins in a nearby big town, under the stewardship of hot-tempered Rikichi who is accompanied by two older men, the editing pace slows and the film takes its time to narrate how the new characters meet, try to get along, and eventually become part of the village community.
After a few, predictable, rejections by disdainful samurai (who still badly need to find a job), the village’s envoys stumble across a samurai as he tries to save a child from a madman. His cunning and quiet manner drives them to him and, amazingly, they manage to talk him into accepting the task. Kambei cuts a benevolent but resigned figure, keen on helping whatever the price but aware he is on the losing side of the changing times. He stands out among the numerous samurai popular culture has portrayed in films because, however proud he is of the skills and wisdom attached to his trade, he views the samurai as perennial losers, certainly a reflection of his era’s political and social turmoil that is leading to a realignment of clans, classes, and people, and the sober acknowledgment the samurai heavily depends on others to eke out a living. But its pronouncements also sound like a bitter assessment of his own career and the heartbreaking awareness of the futility of his life.
A whole section depicts good-humoredly how Kambei recruits the six men his plan requires; he ends up with a motley group of men differing on age, talent, and temperament. There is, from the very start, a rookie, an eager and naïve young man dazzled by the samurai’s prestige and looking for a sensei (a teacher and role model), Katsushirô; a former brother in arms, Shichiroji, a cheerful fighter, Gorobei, a samurai who enjoys deadpan humor more than bloody fighting, Heihachi, and a cold and demanding master, Kyûzô. The seventh fighter Kambei hires is, unlike the others, a most implausible and irritating candidate. Kikuchyo is an odd and roguish, foolhardy and intemperate young man who has been tailing Kambei for some time. Kikuchyo tends to steal the show too often because he displays such an irreverent and exuberant behavior, a buffoon lost in a group of safe hands. Actually, it turns out he is not a genuine samurai but a poor who fled his village and is striving to play the part and he stands as a living reminder inside the group of the misery that the samurai inflicted on the peasantry with their endless wars (Kikuchyo would spell out this ugly reality during a fiery tirade captured by stunning closeups, one of the most fascinating moments of a film that delivers so many of them but also a key development that adds more complexity to the character who can be easily considered more as just an amusing wildcat complementing the samurai group put up by Kambei).
The seven samurai eventually settle in the village and get ready for the fight under Kambei’s smart guidance. Tensions run high as the villagers find it difficult to trust the warriors and to follow orders. Two flash points come up: the fear some girls could be seduced by the samurai (a danger that drives mad one of the villagers who took part in the search for the samurai, Manzo; the irony is that his behaviors cause in part the trouble he was so keen to avoid) and the discovery of arms stolen from dead samurai (pointing at both the greed and the low morality of the country-dwellers). Avoiding discord is thus a real challenge but both camps manage it. The upshot of these efforts onscreen is the constant sense of humor that make the film and its characters so delightful and relatable.
And then the battle with the bandits begins. They assault the place in waves of attacks over a few days but the clever tactics of the samurai and the unfailing support of the villagers beat them and they suffered heavy casualties. The final attack under a pouring rain does away with the remnants. Unfortunately, some villagers are also killed as well as four of the samurai in the course of the long and epic battle, and Kambei can draw, during at the end of a coda where the ordinary life and joyful rituals of the peasants dominate while the surviving samurai stand as silent and sullen witnesses (what a contrast with the rest of the film are those lengthy shots underlining silence and sadness in a group who has been so raucous and forceful), the conclusion that samurai can never be winners.
Three and a half have been spent telling the story, a runtime long enough to allow the audience to get acquainted with such a wide range of characters and then share their feelings. The care devoted to their portrayals is wonderful and the human touch it gives to this action movie is powerful and unforgettable. The plot ideas, especially when charting the hectic course of the fight are clever, starting with the recruitment of the tough guys needed to help the weakest and next the subplots carefully depicting the interactions between the two groups. The battle’s numerous and successive incidents make it absolutely thrilling and suspenseful, as they build up into a visually masterful confrontation which highlights the good’s intelligence and courage.
Kurosawa Akira keeps developing his personal, splendid sense of shot composition and his gift for getting the cameras effortlessly follow the characters’ actions, from the preparation of the battle (a tour of the village where a map, landscapes and people are explored at the same time) to the rain-drenched assault (a feat that is helped by the use of multiple cameras and panning motions). Even more remarkable is how he tells a gripping story of samurai pointedly avoiding to depict too heroic and nostalgic an image of them: while showcasing great characters the film delivers a critical, lucid take. The heroes may be attaching but they belong to a flawed social order undergoing big changes.