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Film details
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Featuring
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Director
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Country
Japan
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Year
1954
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Genre
Drama
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Type
Film
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Category
Fiction
Alternative titles
- Shichinin no samurai Original
Introduction
“What is always impressive about Seven Samurai is its boundless energy. The film is an exercise in kinesis, in the realization of a cinema defined as pure motion.”
Stephen Prince, The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa, 1991
Akira Kurosawa followed the breakthrough international acclaim for Rashomon (1950) and Ikiru (1952) with this three-and-a-half-hour jidaigeki (period drama) set during Japan’s turbulent 16th century.
Strongly influenced by the poetic westerns of John Ford, Kurosawa’s story of farmers recruiting a motley troupe of samurai to help them fend off bandits in turn had a huge impact on subsequent westerns and action films – from Hollywood remake The Magnificent Seven (1961) onwards.
The early section’s gathering together of the diversely talented fighters is a trope in action movies to this day, while the restrained use of slow-motion in the frenzied final faceoff has since been abused to far less subtle ends. Kurosawa expertly sustains the suspense over a lengthy duration, instilling the story with an almost Shakespearian grandeur.
The director’s regular star Toshiro Mifune (here playing the wild-card seventh samurai) later played the lone, wandering ronin in Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961).
Cast & Credits
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Cast
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Kambei Shimada, leader of samurai
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Kikuchiyo, would-be samurai
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Kyuzo, swordsman
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Katsushiro, young samurai
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Shichiroji, Kambei's friend
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Heihachi, good-nateured samurai
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Gorobei, wise warrior
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Rikichi, militant villager
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Shino, Manzo's daughter
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Manzo, Shino's father
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Yohei, frightened villager
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Gisaku, village elder
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Mosuke
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Gosaku
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peasant woman
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minstrel-priest
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grandfather
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husband
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wife
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priest
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masterless samurai
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coolie
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vendor
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Rikichi's wife
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Bandit Chief
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peasant
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peasant
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peasant
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peasant
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bandit
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bandit
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bandit
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bandit
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bandit
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bandit
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bandit
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Credits
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Direction:
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Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
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Assistant Director
Rights:
Production:
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Production Company
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Producer
Writing:
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Screenplay
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Screenplay
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Screenplay
Photography:
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Director of Photography
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Lighting
Design:
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Art Director
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Art Consultation
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Art Consultation
Music:
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Music
Sound:
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Sound Recording
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Sound Effects
Stunts:
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Fencing Director
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Archery Director
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Archery Director
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The Greatest Films of All Time 2012
Ranked 17th in the critics’ poll