Film review: Seven Samurai (1954)

We've re-watched most of our other fave Kurosawa Samurai films - Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Hidden Fortress, but the THREE AND A HALF HOUR length of this one has meant we've only watched it once... until now.  We previously had it on DVD but I lent that one out and somehow it disappeared.  So when Criterion.com had a sale a while back I splashed out on the Blu-Ray, and we settled down to watch it (in two installments - we're not as young as we were).  Wow.  This is the most gripping 200+ minute film ever.  Nowadays, of course, it would be an epic Game-of-Thrones-ish TV series, which would make perfect sense, but then you wouldn't get as wrapped up in the world as you do.  I would love to watch it on the big screen.  What makes it so engrossing?  I don't know - that's why I watch movies, I don't make them.  But there are moments, like when three of the Samurai set out to kill the bandit scouts (about TWO HOURS IN) that are inexplicably heart-stopping.  Of course you know the basic plot, because you know The Magnificent Seven (let's watch that next!): small village's inhabitants overhear bandit crew decided to return to pillage them when their barley is harvested and decide that they have to hire professionals to protect them.  So off they trot (or at least, a small group of them, including the determined younger one (Rikichi - who has a secret that emerges later that explains his iron will to fight) and the whiny older one (Manzo, who worries constantly about his pretty daughter Shino, who will fall for our youngest samurai).  Then follows the now-standard "getting the gang together" sequence.  We begin with Takashi Shimura's Kambei Shimada, a wise older Ronin who we see is special because he is willing to shave off his topknot (the sign of one's Samurai status - in another Samurai film, tellingly titled Harakiri, a warrior doesn't bother killing the Samurai he defeats, he just cuts off their topknots knowing that they will commit suicide out of shame (thanks booklet-that-came-with-the-Blu Ray)) to disguise himself as a monk in order to rescue a child being held hostage.  In quick succession we then acquire Shichiroji, Kambei's old comrade (who reminisces with him about how he survived one battle by hiding - a sign that Kurosawa is not going to stick to the typical Samurai-as-saintly-heroes script), Gorobei Katayama, a skilled archer, who acts as Kambei's second-in-command when it comes to planning the village's defense, Kyuzo, who is the perfect Samurai, both in supreme swordsmanship and Zen-like stoicism (we first see him trying to talk an opponent out of fighting him because he knows the opponent will die), Heihachi Heiyashida, a "mediocre swordsman" who is recruited partly for his cheery happy-go-lucky contribution to the esprit de corps (we first see him chopping wood and he explains that he likes it because it's easier than killing enemies, and when asked if he has killed many enemies, he answers "since it is impossible to kill them all, I usually run away," to the amusement and approval of Schichiroji, who recruits him on the spot), and finally Katsushiro, the handsome young wannabe from a Samurai family, and of course, Mifune as the unnamed ex-farmer, who is given the name Kikuchiyo because that's the name of the 13-year-old scion of a Samurai family that he unsuccessfully claims to be when trying to join the squad.  Most of the next hour is spent on Mifune trying to worm his way in after being repeatedly rejected.  Of course he eventually proves himself lion-hearted and a true Samurai, even if he never loses his coarseness.  Mifune is in full scenery chewing mode here, scratching and mugging, laughing insanely, hopping around and making faces, because, he said, Kurosawa gave him free rein.  (Kurosawa supposedly said to a director, who came to him exasperated that Mifune wouldn't do what he told him in his movie, "you don't direct Mifune - he's like a rocket.  You just point him in roughly the right direction and watch him go off".)  You'd think after the "getting the gang together" sequence we'd move fairly quickly to some fighting, but this film wisely spends about an hour settling the Samurai in to village life, teaching the scared farmers how to fight, finding out that those same "scared farmers" had a stash of stolen Samurai armor from all the Ronin they'd killed in the past, fallen in love (Katsushiro with Shino), etc.  This is far from a detriment, (a) because it's handled so beautifully that you never get antsy, and (b) because it makes the stakes of the final battle so much higher.  And what a battle it is: I would be amazed if no actor got his eye put out what with all the spears and swords flashing around.  And the drenching rain and thrashing horses.  Of course, not everyone makes it out alive.  In fact, four Samurai bite it, starting with the cheerful Heihachi (as Kambei says ruefully to Shichiroji, "you said he'd be a tonic in bad times and the bad times are just starting") who dies ignominiously by "friendly fire" when he tries to comfort the mad-with-anguish Rikichi, who has just seen his wife, who had been stolen away by the bandits the previous year, commit suicide in shame by returning to the burning bandit hideout.  Anyway, I was amazed by how transfixed I was: I haven't been that gripped since Wages of Fear.  Set aside half a day and just watch it (again).  And then count all the films (besides Magnificent Seven) that ripped it off.