Seven Samurai (1954)

This is the only one of Mutant’s choices that I didn’t have a choice with.

She knows how much I dislike movies not in English and the thought of making me watch a 3.5 hours classic entirely in Japanese must have made her feel like a James Bond villain.

Let’s see if she managed to drive me crazy on this one…

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“This is the nature of war. By protecting others, you save yourselves.” – Kambei Shimada

Number of Times Seen – 1 (18 Aug 2015)

Brief Synopsis – After their village is threatened by bandits, the farmers decide to hire seven samurai warriors to help them defend themselves and their families

My Take on it – Being that I am not a fan of foreign language films at all, I have purposely avoided watching this one for a very long time.

Adding to the fact that it’s nearly 3.5 hours of Japanese, I just didn’t have much of an inclination to watch it until I was now “forced” to do it.

I loved how the story was told and how they took their time to tell it.  I am not afraid of long movies and this movie is further proof that a long movie can be great if done properly.

Nothing is rushed along and we get to understand the characters and their situations much better because it is being told in a certain way.

Both the exposition scenes and action scenes are done exceptionally well and we get to see the full scope of the story as it is played out.

I liked how they used visual ‘aids’ in order to help us keep track of the layout of the village and the dwindling numbers of the bandits. This is quite a clever way to keep us fully informed.

All that being said, I can confidentially say that IF I see this again it will probably take a few years til I am able to get over the exhaustive feeling of watching this great movie solely in Japanese.

I can now understand why this is considered one of the best movies ever made and I’m actually glad that Mutant made me watch it.

Bottom Line – Great epic movie that takes its time and doesn’t rush anything.  Despite it being in a foreign language I enjoyed it immensely.  Excellent way of telling a story. I now understand why so many people love this movie. Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The first draft, written by Shinobu Hashimoto, was written “freely,” as instructed by Kurosawa, and wound up 500 pages long.(From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy

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