Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1954)
Kurosawa Akira
Japan
207 mins, black and white, Japanese (English subtitles), Criterion DVD
Perhaps the best-known, and certainly one of the most popular, of Kurosawa's films, SEVEN SAMURAI has lost nothing of its impact during its fifty years of existence. With the definite Criterion edition, we finally have the remastered uncut 207 minute version (previous releases had only the 160 min international version), and although some of the translation remains suspect---cf. the barn scene between Katsushiro (Kimura) and Shino (Tsushima), where the translation makes her look worried about herself, while the translation in the trailer (the correct one???) makes her worry about Katsushiro---it still beats the usual English subtitle drivel.
This famous jidai-geki has a relatively simple plot. A group of brigands plans to raid a village once the crop is harvested but is overheard by a villager. Upon hearing the bad news, the farmers decide to hire samurai to protect the village, except they have nothing to offer except food, shelter, and almost certain death with no glory. Fortunately, the emissaries stumble across the noble Kambei (Shimura), who manages to find five other willing samurai. The six are joined by Kikuchiyo (Mifune), who is an orphaned ex-farmer and not really a samurai. The seven prepare the village for battle, storm the compound of the bandits, and then fight them in the village proper. In the end, they win but four of them die in the process.
The film is incredibly entertaining and one can barely register the fact that it is over three hours long. First, the individual portraits of the samurai are carefully drawn, and each is characterized uniquely with at least one incident. Kambei shaves his head (usually a sign of disgrace) to impersonate a priest in order to save a child held hostage by a thief. Katsushiro picking flowers in the middle of battle preparations. Heihachi (Chiaki) chopping wood and never losing his sense of humor. Kyuzo (Miyaguchi), the master swordsman, who duels with deadly precision. The two characters where most attention is paid, however, are doubtless Kikuchiyo and Kambei. Mifune's hero is strange: he cannot befriend farmers because he is repulsed by their inaction, but he cannot befriend the samurai because he blames them for the farmers' plight. Kambei, who gradually comes to realize why it is that the farmers fear and hate the samurai who are supposed to protect them only a trifle less than the bandits who rob them, is doomed to knowing but unable to change his own fate. He wins the battle, but in fact loses and has to leave, quickly forgotten by the farmers.
One is tempted to read a lot of class commentary in this epic, as indeed some have done, but never mind the Marxist interpretations, the story really does not need them, and can stand on its own. There are no hidden messages, everything is in plain sight, enacted with quiet drama that only Kurosawa can muster. The most unforgettable scene is the final showdown: the battle in mud and rain. Do we look at Kambei, who stands like a colossus, drawing an arrow after an arrow? Or do we look at Kikuchiyo, who charges madly at man and beast, using up swords as if they are tooth picks? Or do we look at Kyuzo, invincible to a blade and ironically killed by a bullet? Or do we look at Katsushiro, who goes from youth to manhood within minutes? The fight is fast, brutal, ugly, and ignominious. There is no glory even for Kikuchiyo's self-sacrifice when he manages to kill the leader of the bandits. In the end, there are four graves and three samurai completely ignored by the farmers.
The farmers are also capable of courage. One extremely poignant moment involves farmer Rikichi and his wife, who has been kidnapped by the bandits during their last raid. When the raid party storms the bandit compound and sets it on fire, Rikichi discovers that his wife is alive. She wakes up from the smoke, sees the fire, and then does not wake her captors up, preferring to perish in the flames. When they still manage to wake up and run outside only to be mowed down by the samurai, she eventually leaves. It is at this point that Rikichi sees and recognizes her. He runs toward his wife but then she turns around and darts back into the fire, to perish there, unable to look her husband in the eye. He has to live through her death all over again. No wonder he longs to fight the bandits.
This Kurosawa epic is mesmerizing and although the battles are somewhat sanitized (i.e. not much blood and gore by contemporary standards), they are quite impressive, much more so than many a modern gorefest. One certainly needs to see this film several times to appreciate all the little details that Kurosawa managed to pack into it. The popular lame Western remake, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, really does the story no justice at all. Do yourself a favor and go for the original.
March 9, 2001. BLS