Wolff rating: UNSURPASSED
Plot summary: Villagers menaced by bandits recruit samurai to defend their village.
Biased, pithy comments: A wonderful tale of honor, love, and distrust, realized nearly perfectly. Widely regarded as Kurosawa's greatest triumph (except perhaps the richly colored ``Ran''), this is a masterpiece. Running at over three hours, Kurosawa has time to paint each of his characters perfectly with sparse lines, tension, and the occasional bit of human humor. And, of course, the technical aspects are stunning, with a recreation of 16th century Japan, excellent editing, solid narrative, and skillful filming of battle. The samurai themselves exude character from the moment they step on stage---the complete realization of the hero split in seven equal parts.
Other Notes: Kurosawa's work and this film in particular have been widely copied by Western filmmakers. This movie was remade as ``The Magnificent Seven'' with gunslingers and Mexican peasants, and Clint Eastwood's career was built on Sergio Leone's examination of Kurosawa-esque samurai stories in a Western format. Also, ``The Dirty Dozen'' has been compared to this film. All of them are interesting movies (and well done), but Kurosawa is the master. The only disappointment for me was that the story and style were so familiar, but that is because it is simply the best.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Daisuke Kato, Isao Kimura.
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa