Seven Samurai (Kurosawa 1954) Restored 512x384 H264.nfo
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa 1954) Restored 512x384 H264
Seven Samurai (1954)
Shichinin no samurai (original title)
Unrated | 3h 27min | Drama | 19 November 1956 (USA)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047478/
Rating: 8.7
A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed
samurai to help them defend themselves.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writers: Akira Kurosawa (screenplay), Shinobu Hashimoto (screenplay) | 1 more credit »
Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima
File: MP4
File size: 832 MB
Duration: 3:26:40
Video: H.264/AVC 512 x 384
Audio: AAC stereo 96 Kbits
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English, muxed (switchable); External SRT also incl.
NOTE: Please ignore the spurious second subtitles track.
Review by Jonathan Crow (Allmovie.com)
Widely considered one of the greatest films ever made, Seven Samurai
was both the apex of Akira Kurosawa's long career and the high-water
mark of the Japanese period drama. The film's action rivets the viewer
in spite of the three-hour-plus running time: the battle sequences,
among the best ever filmed, are immediate and visceral; and the
characters are complex and so well-rendered that the viewer grieves
when one dies. Like few other historical films, it captures not only
the physical look of the time but also its essence. Like Jean Renoir's
masterpieces Grand Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939),
Seven Samurai illustrates the collapse of social distinctions and the
growing irrelevance of old traditions in dangerous and chaotic times.
Kurosawa questions the division between samurai and bandit, between
good and evil. In one scene, peasant-born Kikuchiyo heatedly argues
that the samurai have been abusing and exploiting the peasants for
centuries. In this framework, the samurais' acts of bravery,
selflessness, and honor seem absurd, if not pointless. The peasants'
choice of the samurai over the bandits is merely one of a lesser evil.
Once the bandits are gone, the samurai will no longer be needed. This
is underscored in the film's poignant end, when the surviving three
samurai leave the village, receiving neither acclaim nor reward, as the
villagers plant rice. American audiences were so impressed with
Kurosawa's epic masterpiece that it was remade into John Sturges'
Magnificent Seven (1960).
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