Seven Samurai (1954) - Review by Jacob Kroeker

History of the Film

Seven Samurai is a 1954 film directed by Akira Kurosawa. Seven Samurai was one of the first films that gained popularity in the west and propelled both Kurosawa and Japanese cinema into the global film scene. Many directors such as Sergio Leone, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese have all used Kurosawa’s films as influence to their own works. Seven Samurai is even the basis of the 1998 Pixar film A Bug’s Life. The story follows a village that is routinely attacked by bandits and forced to give over their already meager crops. The villagers are fed up with their defenseless position and they go out to gather seven samurai to help protect their village. The film is a beautifully shot and exhilarating look into Sengoku Era Japan that has gone on to influence many filmmakers worldwide, especially those within the Western genre.

Historical Analysis of the Film

Sengoku Era Japan, or the Warring States Period was a period of civil war and near constant conflict in Japan. In Seven Samurai, we aren’t shown the military or the political matters of the civil war, but rather the effects it has on one of the poorest population of Japan, farmers in a remote village. The central conflict of the film reflects the power vacuum that occured during this Sengoku Era and how it was not uncommon for small bandit tribes to terrorize surrounding villages due to a lack of centralized government forces. Overall, the film also does a very good job of showing the social relations between the villagers and the samurai through visual cues like hairstyles as well as the way the characters acknowledge their social standings. Although Kurosawa plays with and problematizes this idea of social hierarchy thematically, the film ultimately ends with everyone in their “proper” social standings in an almost melancholy way. In doing this, he is able to retain the majority of historical accuracy, while still commenting on it from a modern perspective.