Seven Samurai: Humanity in Battle

After just viewing one of my absolute favorite films "Seven Samurai" again after so many times, I am still moved by the scenes in it. Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" is one of those rare films that works as both an entertaining action film and a philosophical one.

The story begins in a small farming village where the people there are being overrun and tormented by group of bandits. When things get desperate, the farmers go to their village elder for advice. He decides the only way the farmers can get rid of the bandits is to hire samurai. The search soon begins, but since the bandits haven't left the farmers with much, all they can offer the samurai are some bowls of rice.

The farmers soon find Kambei (Takashi Shimura), a learned samurai who they first notice in a famous scene involving him saving a child from a kidnapper. After being impressed with his skill they approach him. At first Kambei refuses the farmer's request stating it is not his fight, but soon has a change of heart after he considers their desperation. Kambei then figures that in order to be successful against the bandits, he must recruit six more samurai. Each of these man are highly individual, but most of them follow a certain Archetype. They include a young student samurai who learns under Kambei's wing (Isao Kimura), and a zen type samurai who is mostly silent and always focused in honing his skill (Seiji Miyaguchi). However the most memorable of these seven is the one played by Toshiro Mifune and his name is Kikuchiyo.

Kikuchiyo is an anomaly in the film in the sense that he's not a real samurai and was raised as a farmer. He's a comic character who represents the separate class system between the samurai and the farmers, and in this way he becomes the most interesting character. It's easy to identify with Kikuchiyo the easiest because since he's caught between these two worlds, we can sympathize with his criticisms for both parties. In one scene that clearly demonstrates Kikuchiyo's frustrations with the two systems, he's berated by wearing the uniform of fallen samurai soldiers. To the other samurai it is a sacred thing, but Kikuchiyo points out that it was the samurai who have forced the farmers to become thieves themselves.

Kurosawa seems to want to examine the rotten aspects of human nature and what makes people do bad things. However in contrast the film gives an optimistic approach by coming up with the solution that if people are brought together to serve a greater good, our humanity will flourish. The film is full of many poignant scenes involving the best of humanity and it is this philosophy that Kurosawa embraces in many of his films.

The final third of the film is pretty much non-stop action with many innovative techniques mastered by Kurosawa. They include multiple cameras and telephoto lenses that gets us right into the rainy, muddy battle. Each death in "Seven Samurai" is felt, battle is not seen as heroic here, but noble. When someone dies we feel it because we have gotten to know these characters, and we know they died through selfless deeds.

I'm moved each time I watch "Seven Samurai", Kurosawa himself considered it to be his personal favorite along with "Ikiru". The film's concept has been remade several times in North America, but the idea and the heart of the original has never been duplicated. "Seven Samurai" remains a classic of popular art, but more importantly it's one of the few films that represents the best of human nature and what can be accomplished through the greater good, after this film Kurosawa would be considered a master of cinema.