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 hen watching "Seven Samurai," one must remember two things: The
first is that Asian cinema has been at a great disadvantage to their western
counterparts. At a time when Asia was still trying to come out of the shadow of
World War II, America and other Western powers were already a dominant force in
world cinema. The Asians had a hard time trying to find the balance between art
and social commentary and simple entertainment.
The second thing to keep in mind is that before 1990 -- and even to a point
after 1990 -- a lot of Asian films were shot on terrible filmstock. Many films
were actually using filmstock that were dozens of years old. This usually
resorted in grainy pictures and scratches on the film. Filmmaking was an
expensive venture and required a lot of time and dedication, not to mention
money. Which leads me to this conclusion: I cringe every time I see "Seven
Samurai," because the filmstock is so bad that it tries its damnedest to
destroy Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece. And let's not talk about the quality
of film cameras available back then.
"Citizen Kane" is commonly regarded as the greatest movie ever
made, especially in light of its time period and the many innovations that
Welles pioneered. In that same light, "Seven Samurai" is one of the
greatest, if not the greatest, Asian film ever made. Although, as
prefaced, its grainy filmstock leaves a lot to be desired. Unlike Welles,
Kurosawa had neither the budget nor the technical resources at his disposal to
film the movie the way he might have wanted to. Anyone who has seen Kurosawa's
later samurai work understands that the man had a great eye for cinematography.
The plot of "Seven Samurai" is well known, so I won't bother to go
in great detail. Long story very short: a town is constantly under attack by
bandits so they send out men to hire samurais to defend them. They find one
samurai, who recruits others. Like the westerns and other movies that came after
it, there is a seventh samurai (gunfighter, mercenary, etc.) who isn't chosen,
but tags along anyway, and is eventually brought into the fold after proving his
worth (and in some cases, her worth). The samurai fight and half of them
die by movie's end.
The action in "Seven Samurai" is very brief and shown in spurts.
The only action scenes that are drawn out are the major battles with the bandits.
As in reality, samurai sword battles consisted of long periods of standing and
scrutinizing each other -- what you might call posing -- and then the actual
fight, which lasts for less than a second. The person still standing is the
winner. In that regard, it's similar to a gunfight. Long periods of
contemplation followed by a brief flash of action.
"Seven Samurai" is a masterpiece that has spurred many foolhardy
imitators. The American western "The
Magnificent Seven" has been the only movie to ever approach
"Seven's" greatness, and it was able to achieve this by transplanting
the samurai to the Wild West. The change of scenery worked. Others have not been
so lucky.
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