Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai, is one of the most acclaimed Japanese films ever created, and also one of the most influential pieces of film. Akira Kurosawa co-wrote, edited, and directed this masterpiece, a film that became the archetype for group action films.

Seven Samurai has honor, bloodshed, lose, and love. Its covers the full spectrum of humanity, about the tragedies of life, such a starvation, sickness, weakness and finally death. It also includes the honor, in upholding one's beliefs, of defending the weak, and of the poor, huddled masses that raise up to fight their oppressors.

Kurosawa's beautiful use of scenery, his attention to detail, his ablitily to not only move his audiance by the storyline, but also from the sher beauty of it all. From dappled light dancing on the top of bald heads to patterned kimonos gracing the back sides of young women, to unforgiving rain symobolizing both dispare and salvation. The use of bamboo diagonals to lead into the scenes, and the separation of the samurai from the farmers all show the continuty of a strictly Japanese piece along with sublty directing the audiance into watching and feeling what Kurasawa wants them to feel.

The nature of this film, its role as an archatype, is whats fascinating, that this Japanese answer to the Western went on to spur the last of the Great American Film Westerns; The Magnificent Seven.