Seven Samurai

Released in 1954, Seven Samurai was well ahead of its time in terms of just about everything: technique, style, character, plot, writing...you name it. Show me a man who doesn't appreciate the film for any of these aspects, and I'll show you a man with no soul.

It is unequivocally one of the finest films ever made; and every action film which followed -- good or bad -- owes no small debt to the brilliance of Kurosawa's masterpiece. For example, traces of Toshirô Mifune's Kikuchiyo can be seen in such classic characters as Han Solo, Martin Riggs, John McClane...hell, even Marvel Comics' Wolverine. Kikuchiyo is THE prototypical loose cannon, the likeable savage.

And certainly Mifune is the film's most memorable character, but he's far from its only one. The incomparable Takashi Shimura (whom, truth be told, I've always been more fond of than Mifune) is marvellous as Kambei Shimada, the Samurai's leader and the most noble of the group; Yoshio Inaba plays Gorobei, a man so easily likeable and with such a pleasant smile that, just as with Kambei when he first sees him, our affection for him comes in an instant; Seiji Miyaguchi's Kyuzo is the stoic, a man who takes no apparent pleasure in his job but who possesses an innate sense of duty and loyalty; Minoru Chiaki is Heihachi, the band's most amiable and witty spirit; Isao Kimura plays the novice Katsushiro as a young man learning and maturing in the ways of the samurai; and Daisuke Katô's Shichiroji, a comrade who has previously fought beside Kambei, rounds out the posse.

The farmers, whom the samurai vow to protect from bandits who would steal their crops and pillage their land, have their fare share of interesting characters, too. There's Manzo, grateful for the samurai's assistance but afraid that one of them may seduce his daughter; or Rikichi, whose wife was kidnapped by the very bandits who threaten the village; or the sage Gisaku, the village's patriarch, who initially proposes the idea of hiring samurai, but who stubbornly refuses to abandon his home -- despite the samurai's advice to the contrary -- when the bandits finally strike.

I could go on. Needless to say, the film is driven by its intriguing characters. Many a lackluster film has been made watchable -- and sometimes even exceptional -- due to its strong characterization. The genius of Seven Samurai is that both its characters and its story are riveting, and this is no mean feat for two reasons: 1) balancing the characters and making sure they are all properly and equally (for the most part) developed is an accomplishment of gargantuan proportion, and 2) making sure the story doesn't get bogged down while developing said characters is perhaps an even greater achievement.

All that said, do I consider Seven Samurai to be the greatest film ever made? No. I don't even consider it the greatest film Kurosawa made*. Admittedly, I have only seen the film twice, and my esteem for it may rise in the years to come; but there are some major flaws which inhibit it from being a prime example of cinematic perfection.

First, the thing most ironic about the film is that when the action picks up in the final act, the pace actually slows down. Kurosawa would later refine his ability to film epic battles, but here a certain awkwardness is evident. The fight sequences are not terrible by any means, but the master's skill in this regard is definitely not as honed as it would be in later films such as Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, Ran, Kagemusha, and others.

Second, the deaths of the samurai are handled with about as much depth as insects hit with a fly-swatter. This was likely intentional: I believe Kurosawa wanted to show that the four samurai deaths were no more important than those of the farmers or the bandits who were killed. But that doesn't mean I like the idea. Here are four characters whom we have a strong liking for, and who are taken out of the story with only a few words of mourning and a sword sticking out of their graves. I still can't get over the fact that the last we see of Kikuchiyo -- again, the film's best character -- is a brief shot of him lying on the ground, face-down after being shot. As I said, I realize that this was intentional, but I still hate it.

Finally, the character of Shichiroji is, in a film overpopulated with terrific characters, notably weak. He is not so much a character as he is a script device -- a way of showing that, though their numbers are diminished, the way and code of the true samurai will persevere, and that they will continue on in their thankless tasks.

One aspect of the film which some may find flawed -- yet is anything but -- is the lack of clearly-delineated villains. The bandits are given very little screen time and dialogue, their threat vague; and the paradigm of effective storytelling states that a hero (or, in this case, heroes) must have an equally-compelling nemisis/nemeses in order to be compelling. This is true; however, in the case of Seven Samurai, the bandits, while definitely the de facto villains, aren't the film's focal source of conflict, which instead lies between the samurai and the people whom they have sworn to protect. The film's final scene, which shows how the naive Katsushiro is played (in the colloquial sense) by Shino, the object of his affections, is a wry statement on human selfishness and our inability to appreciate the efforts of those who've helped us once our needs have been met.

It's an appropriate ending. It may not be the happiest or the most optimistic, but I'm willing to concede that it's the one that works.

Two more quick notes:

1) I was hoping to include one of those "Which (film name here) character are you?" surveys, but, I'll be damned, I don't believe one exists for Seven Samurai.

And my faith in mankind slips a little more each day.

2) I'm curious: on a scale of stupid to insanely idiotic, where does the Japanese tradition of women shaving their eyebrows rank?




* Unsolicited, here's my list of the best Kurosawa films:

1) Rashomon
2) Ikiru
3) Seven Samurai
4) Ran
5) Kagemusha