The ending scene has got to be one of the most beautiful and tragic scene in cinema history. The music that plays is a happy song sung by the farmers enjoying their victory, but for the Samurais, they're just looking at the graves of their fallen friends. They won, but somehow lost. Not to mention the cinematography in that scene is breathtaking
@@kiaandavids755 I started with Rashomon and imho that's a great starting point, you can also just start with Seven Samurai, it's 3:30 h long but it's extremely well paced so don't be intimidated by it, alternatively, if you ever watched For A Fistful of Dollars by Sergio Leone and you liked it, watch Yojimbo
Rashomon is a great place for starting with Kurosawa. It's his first masterwork, it shows the full power of the man in storytelling and visual style and it's only 88 minutes long.
@@kiaandavids755 of course there are many great Kurosawa films; one I really like is High And Low, a detective film he made in the early 60s. A real change of pace from the samurai epics but sooo good.
I agree. Shimura has every bit the presence of Mifune just by his stately, wise presence. There is something about his expressions and mannerisms that are captivating. He also worked in many Kurosawa films.
I loved how Shimada said to Katsushirō that he had a lot of experience exclusively in losing battles which makes him unfit as a teacher. I have only truly understood it at the end of the movie. Kikuchiyo is a archetypical trickster, perfectly executed as such.
I remember watching this as a kid with my father. My father, although from a different time with the occasional racey idea (something that has changed with age), always had a deep admiration for Japanese culture and history. I regret the fact that I will never have the chance to meet any of the actors or director to thank them for this masterpiece, which lead to my own fascination with the culture, which eventually lead me to meet the woman I love.
The absolute greatest achievement of this film is how well it works both as a very serious artistic expression but also a popcorn epic, complete with a last stand in the rain ala Helms Deep (or perhaps we should say Helms Deep is ala Seven Samurai!)
Saw it at age 14 or 15 on TV late at night. Never heard about the movie before but I noticed immediately that this is a gem. One of my all time favourites. I have great respect and admiration for Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune and the rest of the staff.
Thank you for this tribute to my favorite film. Just seeing these clips reduces me to tears -again. So many stories told within this story, each of them capable of being a great movie in itself. Kurosawa San has shown the way for all who follow.
Long? All I know is I kept checking how much time was left because I was terrified it was soon going to end! Dark? I found it enormously uplifting & noble --- from every angle. I love Japanese cinema & worship Kurosawa on bended knee!
I come back to this video often and just wanted to add… Kurosawa filled a notebook of detail for each of the Seven Samurai, including what they ate, their personality, and how they tie their shoes. He was a genius in the truest sense of the word, and his appreciation of individual character is what makes this an amazing film.
It's funny. I got in to Kurosawa films for his exceptional directing and magnificent framing. But I'm really enjoying the writing and characters in his movies as well.
While not my first exposure to Japanese Samurai film, The Seven Samurai certainly took it to a whole new level. After discovering the 7 Samurai, I started looking for more & more Kurosawa films and developed an appreciation for his work.
Regarding the notes on Toshiro Mifune's physical acting - I have long loved the way he can look incredibly cool and badass while scratching his armpits.
Well done! The study of real Cinema is not only instructive but entertaining. No matter how many times I see this film, or even a snippet something jumps out from the canvas that I might not have fully appreciated previously. What this film represents to me is the antithesis of what modern 'movies' have become. There is still good Cinema being created today. Hopefully we'll find more and more of it thriving in the future.Thanks for your sharing your insights with us.
Top notch storytelling, beautiful and innovative cinematography along with Toshiro Mifune's wonderful character portrayal. One of the very best movies ever made, an all time favorite I've re-watched many times.
1:43 Excuse me? 3 and a half hours?! Dude I didn't even realize this movie that this long until you said it! It probably felt like an hour to me when I first saw it. Amazing. I love this movie! And great video.
I'm a storyteller in life and I hope soon as a 'professional' researcher bringer of story ideas to film ... many thanks for this excellent and well-made analysis and commentary! Cheers, Michael
I'm watching this review as I'm preparing to re-watch it after almost a decade. It has always been one of my favorite movies of all times. Now I'll be sure to watch with these great consideratinos in mind. I just hope cinema was brought back to these standards once more. Not that we don't have great movies nowadays, but they're really hard to come around lately, imho.
To Jack: I appreciate your review because you do not miss a dot and you are not shallow, nor miss any points or meaningful details. I have read and heard and seen many reviews and whilst they were not bad they were all lacking. Yours was the only one that was above that standard. Thank you. I enjoyed it. Mifune Toshiro is my absloute hero, my favourite, the great artist I love so much and it is never enough to hear his praise. I think he could have been perhaps more appreciated in his lifetime, because I think it was later that people got to appreciate him as much as they should have earlier. But I want to ask you something, actually to watch a film and make a review of it, jsut to show the world an exceptional one of a kind masterpiece hitherto not too well-known, at least because I have not seen or heard much about it. I discovered it some 16 years ago and I was awestruck. Let me tell you about it. I remember one film. It is an unfinished masterpiece the actor who played the title character died and the film was never done. The first part exists, and it is the most powerful film that has ever been made. The actors are true artists especially the 3 main characters but all the rest are amazing. It is a classic adapted from Dostoyevsky's Idiot and it is the greatestt film ever made with due respect to the Seven Samurai that I love. The two of course are not to be compared they are too different, however, if ever there was artistry, that unfortunately, I believe goes completely forgotten whereas it should be revered like Kurosawa's masterpieces, than this is a film like that. Of all the thousands of films I have ever seen and of all the best actors in the world, out of whom, I would only call a handful true artists, while the rest are brilliant actors, these actors are a separate class; a class on their own. The film was made in 1958 only a few years after Seven Samurai, 4 years to be exact, but it is a forgotten masterpiece I believe. Because I do not see it anywhere nor do I hear about it, and it is as if it did not exist, and yet it is the best film that has ever been made with the best artists ever born. I just want to write down their names here of the 3 most important ones: Yuriy Yakovlev, Yuliya Borisova, and Leonid Parkhomenko. I believe if there were 4 artists that have ever graced us in this world, I mean form the actor-world, then I can only add Mifune Toshiro. But that is what I think, of course, I could mention a few more but not too many. Some are so great that, if they had only made one film, and no more they would have still been those absolute artists; like Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. But there are very few of these. I wish you watched this film and make a Jack's Movie Review of that, if for nothing else, but please GET THE WORLD KNOW THIS UNBELIEVABLE CLASSICAL MASTERPIECE: THE iDIOT FORM 1958. THANK YOU.
The anime Samurai 7 got me into this movie. The actor who played Yohei in this film blew me away. There was this scene where their rice was stolen and his friend smacked him and Yohei said he was hugging the jar when he slept so he didn't know how it got stolen. His acting there when he was imploring his friend to stop was amazing. I watched it at work intermittently because it was 3+ hours long. It was incredible.
I just got done watching this movie after the second time in years so it was kinda refreshing to me and man this movie was phenomenal I enjoyed the set pieces, cinematography, action, characters each individual character has its own purpose and reason for why there helping the farmers and my favorite character in the film was kikuchiyo who was full of life goofy and funny yet there was something tragic and also kanbe who was the leader of the group and made sure everybody was good made sure he kept everyone in line this movie shows how leadership, loyalty, and uplifting one another when there down this movie was amazing from beginning to end it didn’t even feel like 3 hours.
I’m glad I had no idea what was going to happen in the movie and didn’t watch any movies that were based around it, except A bugs life but that was when I was like 7. So I’m glad I’d watched this with very fresh eyes and just heard how influential it was.
The framing and composition and photography in the final battle are magnificent. Telephoto lenses and tight framing, the slanting rain and splashing mud--and the shot of Mifune lying face down, the rain washing the mud from his buttocks... One hesitates to call a battle beautiful, but in this case it's true.
Good video. But does it take place over a year? The examples you give of this are that the film itself is long, passing of the seasons and that Kambei's hair has grown. Films that are long don't necessarily take place over a long period of time. The bandits are waiting for the harvest, so I always thought that it would be coming soon, making the film's time period maybe 2 months or so. Also hair grows a half an inch a month, and Kambei's hair only gets to half an inch. Being pedantic but I gotta.
Yeah its not like the premise is "the bandits will come back in one year we gotta find help untill then". The hair growth argument is very strange haha
All you say is so perfect, but how can you miss with such an excellent film? Excellent analysis. It's the characters that make this flow so much. I'd like you to expound more on the four main farmers, whom I feel the film is actually more about. The politics of the village, with two factions. The majority conservative faction led by Manzo, who leads mostly the cowards like Yohei, and who symbolically has a daughter in contrast to his counterpart Mosuke, and in another symbol, he has all sons, the more liberal whose minority faction is symbolized by the four houses outside the village that had to be sacrificed. Mosuke's contingency consists of the few, the brave, like Rikiki. Interesting also is how Mosuke at first balks at fighting for the village even though his belongings are to be sacrificed, yet later gets his second wind and exhorts his people. Also, when it is discovered some villagers have killed wounded samurai on the run for their loot, we find it is the Manzo faction doing this, and we gather not done by the Mosuke faction, which seems to have more honor. I also see the friendship between Rikiki and the apprentice samurai. Oh, I could go on forever. This film is in my top 10 of all time.
Awesome break down/analysis! Well I hate to admit it, but I still haven't seen this movie, which is being mentioned over and over as one of the most influential films ever. About story/screenplay: sometimes you get distracted or just don't get it for one reason or another, and the screenplay lost you (happened to me many times - I had to rewatch many a great (!) movie to get what it is even about). BUT if a movie has great cinematography, set pieces, cast/acting and editing, it still can hold your attention. Glad you mentioned this. I did not spot one single shot in the footage you chose that isn't perfectly composed and pleasing to the eye, yet it looks natural (as opposed to actors hitting marks). Incredible talent back in the day when there was no instant replay, not even video assist and video monitors - just one viewfinder for each camera (often only one single camera was used). The great directors, DPs, camera operators/focus pullers and editors did it beautifully long before video editing software! And yes, I agree: Toshiro Mifune was one of the greatest actors ever. What makes things even harder is that he was born into a culture where body and facial language are very different from our Western culture - yet he made it work with very physical and commanding performances. VERY happy to know that Kurosawa's masterpieces are preserved in beautiful image and sound quality. Hopefully in storage medium that will survive many decades (at least). As always: thanks for sharing your knowledge! Very happy to see your first longer video after some time!
Thank you-it is a remarkable achievement in visual storytelling, I hope you get the chance to see it! I'm slowly ramping up length of videos, eventually on this two week schedule I'd like to be at 12-15 minutes an episode!
I think one thing I really like about the film as an action film is that we know how many bandits there are that the Samurai need to deal with. Modern day CGI-saturated films with epic battle scenes like the "Lord of the Rings" films are great and fun, but we don't see exactly how the foes all get vanquished.
Good analysis but missed some points. When it was first released in the US, it was called "The Magnificent Seven" and almost 50 minutes were cut from the running time. It wasn't until 1982 that theaters in the US released the original long version; the first time movie goers outside Japan saw the original version. Seven Samurai was a trend setter. It's quite possibly the first "recruitment" movie. Much of the drama in the first part of the film revolves around putting the team together. Ocean's Eleven, for example, owes Seven Samurai a nod. The scene where the eventual leader of the samurai shaves his head has much more importance in Japanese culture than in the West. The top knot ("chonmage") is considered a mark of status. A samurai voluntarily cutting off his top knot shows humility. The villagers recognize this and (successfully) appeal to his sense of honor. The actor who played the leader of the samurai, Takashi Shimura, is the professor in the original Godzilla ("Gojira), another iconic film which was released around the same time. And let's not forget the soundtrack. I'm pretty sure jazz music wasn't popular in 16th century Japan, but somehow it works in this movie. In fact, most people who watch the movie won't catch the anachronism. Somehow it just works.
another great Screenplay Shinobu Hashimoto would be Harakiri from 1962 by director Masaki Kobayashi it is an Masterpiece the world just lost on of its great screen writers he looked at the human condition
The pacing of the film is excellent and it doesn't feel like 3 1/2 hours. The Irishman is the same way. Both have great stories and great characters and are made by great filmmakers.
The way the graves were composited with the surviving Samurai made it clear to me - they may as well have died with the others. Even though a sense a cheer was prevalent, I felt like there was nothing to celebrate. It almost made me dislike the farmers.
Every script writing teacher I've ever had has always, always forbidden us from "directing in the script" when we do our assignments. That always seemed like nonsense to me. Turns out it is! Next time I get that shit, I'll be tempted to respond with, "oh, so you think you know better than Akira Kurosawa? I guess that's why you're a legendary filmmaker and he was a college teacher."
