Seven Samurai

A motley assortment of masterless Samurai bands together to defend a poor village from bandits. There are so many facets to this film’s greatness, here are shichi: 1.The way each Samurai’s introduced, making us root for every one. 2.Toshiro Mifune’s petulant, snorting charisma. 3. The way the film moves, like a fairground ride. 4.Collectivism! 5.The surprise of a coy, sun-dappled, moving romance 6. A climactic, thrilling rain-slicked battle for the ages. 7. The high feeling, that you have seen an utter, stone-cold masterpiece… in a cinema!

‘When Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai premiered in Japan on 26 April 1954, it was the most expensive domestic production ever, costing 125 million Yen (approximately $350,000), almost five times the then 26 million Yen ($63,000) average for a typical Japanese studio picture. The troubled year-long location shoot was the stuff of legend before the film had even opened, and Kurosawa’s dictatorial approach towards his cast and crew on set and his stance towards his employers, Toho, back in Tokyo, saw him drawing considerable flak from critics. Donald Richie, in his book The Films of Akira Kurosawa (published in 1965), reported the director’s exasperated response to such attacks: “You try to give a film a little pictorial scope and the journalists jump on you for spending too much money. That is what I really hate about them – they are only an extended form of advertising.”’

Jaspar Sharp, BFI