You know, even though I consider myself a rather big film nerd, I can't say that I've seen much when it comes to Japanese cinema. I mean, I've seen my fair share of anime, sure, but when it comes to non-animated stuff I could count the number of Japanese movies I've seen on one hand. Even so, I know who Akira Kurosowa is. If Hayao Miyazaki is the best known Japanese animation director, then Kurosowa is the best known director of Japanese live-action films. I've only watched one other film from him so far, High and Low, and it was pretty good, but, in my opinion, RIDICOULOUSLY overrated among film nerds. Considering the fact that Seven Samurai is even more highly regarded, and my previous experience with Kurosowa, I didn't really know what to feel or what to expect. Before watching this movie, though, a fellow film-nerd told me that Kurosowa is like a Japanese Spielberg. After watching this movie, I can say that this is pretty accurate, in the context of this film, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's dive into it.
Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese film, and it follows a little village of farmers in 16th century Japan. Each year, after harvest, bandits come to the village and forcefully take most of the crop. The farmers, in a desperate measure, decide to send a few people to look for Samurai that could protect the village. The problem is that Samurai are from the highest levels of society, while the farmers are poor and can only pay with food. As the film progresses and the mission to prepare the village to defeat the bandits once and for all proceeds, we see the internal conflicts, the seemingly impossible fight that's in front of the farmers and the bloody chaos that rules in 16th century, war-infested Japan.
The Spielberg comparison actually makes so much sense to me after watching this movie. Critics and film nerds alike tend to worship Spielberg, but at the end of the day he is, generally, a blockbuster director. Very accessible, very mainstream, able to dabble in different genres each time but still be adored by almost everyone with each film he releases. From my experience with Spielberg so far he tends to capture ideas that weren't really brought to the mainstream before and execute them in ways that are maybe not mind-blowing, but are definitely enough to make an impact on the mainstream - sometimes the result is pretty good, sometimes it's just okay. This is, more or less, how I feel about Seven Samurai. This movie is like the prototype, or the gen-1, or even the original, if you will, blockbuster.
We'll come back to that later, but I want to touch on some other aspects of the film. First of all, it's truly well-made visually. Kurosowa is known for his masterful blocking, and though I can't say that there are many shots that made me feel something, many of them are really pleasant and well-composed. Gotta give credit when it's due. This just goes to show you that whether a film looks good is not a question of technology first, but more a question of how good is the directing, the cinematography, the composition of each scene.
I really like the score, too. From the brooding, dark theme song, through the colorful music of the big city and to the careful, almost childish music in the background of the romance-related scenes. It's not crazy, but again, well-made. An aspect of this film I definitely enjoyed.
I think that when talking about this film as a blockbuster, one can really appreciate the scope of this movie, considering the time in which it came out. At almost 3.5 hours, and with a really big cast of characters and grand battle scenes, this film was really ambitious. It almost made the studio go broke with how much money the production needed. Nothing can take that away from this movie, but even though it's very impressive to pull this sort of plot off in the 1950's, it doesn't make this film good. You see, there are some parts of the story that I like - cool use of tropes that later became classic, some aspects of the romance subplot, the BURNING HOUSE SCENE WITH THE GIRL WAKING UP (which is WAY too good for this movie, honestly), the way that this movie manages to make us feel the setting, the location, how it teaches us about the village's structure to make one of the more realistic battle scenes I've seen, strategically speaking. But these parts are not the main thing here, and are scattered throughout the movie. Most of it I honestly find nothing more than okay, and sometimes (like almost every scene with Kikuchiyo) it's just too stiff, too forced, too shallow. A film that establishes so many characters (that are simple but still all different) might really need this runtime, sure, it's not unheard of, but the story itself is just not that interesting. I like some parts of it, but 3.5 hours that are mostly just pretty decent to mediocre blockbuster material are just not worth it. Sorry for anyone who loves this film, but this is how I feel.
Seven Samurai's scope is definitely impressive, and it has some cool, fun moments, well-composed shots and a good soundtrack. The biggest chunk of this 3.5-hour long movie, though, is somewhere between mediocre and not bad, and this just won't do in such a long film. It becomes tiresome, and along with the parts of this film that feel too over-the-top to really work, I feel like this movie is not much more than a mediocre experience. Again - it has some good, and not a lot of bad, but with such a length and not enough substance it just doesn't succeed at getting me immersed. Feeling a 5.8/10 on this one.
Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese film, and it follows a little village of farmers in 16th century Japan. Each year, after harvest, bandits come to the village and forcefully take most of the crop. The farmers, in a desperate measure, decide to send a few people to look for Samurai that could protect the village. The problem is that Samurai are from the highest levels of society, while the farmers are poor and can only pay with food. As the film progresses and the mission to prepare the village to defeat the bandits once and for all proceeds, we see the internal conflicts, the seemingly impossible fight that's in front of the farmers and the bloody chaos that rules in 16th century, war-infested Japan.
The Spielberg comparison actually makes so much sense to me after watching this movie. Critics and film nerds alike tend to worship Spielberg, but at the end of the day he is, generally, a blockbuster director. Very accessible, very mainstream, able to dabble in different genres each time but still be adored by almost everyone with each film he releases. From my experience with Spielberg so far he tends to capture ideas that weren't really brought to the mainstream before and execute them in ways that are maybe not mind-blowing, but are definitely enough to make an impact on the mainstream - sometimes the result is pretty good, sometimes it's just okay. This is, more or less, how I feel about Seven Samurai. This movie is like the prototype, or the gen-1, or even the original, if you will, blockbuster.
We'll come back to that later, but I want to touch on some other aspects of the film. First of all, it's truly well-made visually. Kurosowa is known for his masterful blocking, and though I can't say that there are many shots that made me feel something, many of them are really pleasant and well-composed. Gotta give credit when it's due. This just goes to show you that whether a film looks good is not a question of technology first, but more a question of how good is the directing, the cinematography, the composition of each scene.
I really like the score, too. From the brooding, dark theme song, through the colorful music of the big city and to the careful, almost childish music in the background of the romance-related scenes. It's not crazy, but again, well-made. An aspect of this film I definitely enjoyed.
I think that when talking about this film as a blockbuster, one can really appreciate the scope of this movie, considering the time in which it came out. At almost 3.5 hours, and with a really big cast of characters and grand battle scenes, this film was really ambitious. It almost made the studio go broke with how much money the production needed. Nothing can take that away from this movie, but even though it's very impressive to pull this sort of plot off in the 1950's, it doesn't make this film good. You see, there are some parts of the story that I like - cool use of tropes that later became classic, some aspects of the romance subplot, the BURNING HOUSE SCENE WITH THE GIRL WAKING UP (which is WAY too good for this movie, honestly), the way that this movie manages to make us feel the setting, the location, how it teaches us about the village's structure to make one of the more realistic battle scenes I've seen, strategically speaking. But these parts are not the main thing here, and are scattered throughout the movie. Most of it I honestly find nothing more than okay, and sometimes (like almost every scene with Kikuchiyo) it's just too stiff, too forced, too shallow. A film that establishes so many characters (that are simple but still all different) might really need this runtime, sure, it's not unheard of, but the story itself is just not that interesting. I like some parts of it, but 3.5 hours that are mostly just pretty decent to mediocre blockbuster material are just not worth it. Sorry for anyone who loves this film, but this is how I feel.
Seven Samurai's scope is definitely impressive, and it has some cool, fun moments, well-composed shots and a good soundtrack. The biggest chunk of this 3.5-hour long movie, though, is somewhere between mediocre and not bad, and this just won't do in such a long film. It becomes tiresome, and along with the parts of this film that feel too over-the-top to really work, I feel like this movie is not much more than a mediocre experience. Again - it has some good, and not a lot of bad, but with such a length and not enough substance it just doesn't succeed at getting me immersed. Feeling a 5.8/10 on this one.