Seven Samurai (Japanese: 七人の侍, Hepburn: Shichinin no Samurai) is a 1954 Japanese epic jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Starring Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima and Yukiko Shimazaki, it tells the story of a village of farmers who hire seven samurai to help defend their village from bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops. Influential in world cinema, Seven Samurai is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made.

Kurosawa and Hashimoto researched the Edo period for stories to adapt and came across an account of samurai defending farmers from bandits. Together with Oguni, the screenwriters spent over six weeks writing the script and creating detailed plans for each of the film’s characters. Produced by Toho, the film spent three months in pre-production casting and location scouting. Filming began on May 27, 1953 and took place on set at Toho Studios, and on location in Shizuoka and Kanagawa Prefectures. Mid-way through production, the film ran out of money. Toho eventually funded Samurai to a total of ¥210 million,[a] making it the most expensive Japanese film made at the time. For the film’s final battle, Kurosawa innovated the use of a multi-camera setup and telephoto lenses to adjust audience perception. Filming wrapped in 1954 after 148 working days.

Seven Samurai was released in Japan on April 26, 1954, with a runtime of 207 minutes. The film was recut before entering the Venice Film Festival. At Venice, Kurosawa won the Silver Lion for direction, and the film was distributed in the United States by Columbia Pictures in November 1956, where it was recut again. The film grossed ¥290 million in ticket sales in Japan[b] making it the highest-grossing film of that year, though due to its large production cost, it was not highly profitable. In the United States, the film grossed $145,800 in 1956 and 1957.[c] The film received a mixed critical response in Japan, but a generally positive response in the US. Reviewers praised the story and acting but criticized the film’s length and attitude towards the farmers. American reviews compared the film to Western movies. Samurai was nominated for two Academy Awards and three BAFTAs, but won none.

In the decades since its release, scholars and reviewers have praised the film as a masterpiece. Seven Samurai has been influential among Western filmmakers, with its story and approach to action remade and reiterated numerous times, most notably in the 1960 film The Magnificent Seven. Seven Samurai also influenced other media, including anime and video games. Scholarly analysis of the film has looked at it through a humanistic and formalistic lens. Discussions focus on the morality and heroism of the samurai, showing their relationship to class and the environment. In addition to allegorical readings, scholars have also looked at the film’s cinematography, use of music, and Seven Samurai’s place within the jidaigeki genre.

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

reminders:

  • 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
  • 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
  • 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
  • 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

Financial Support to the Bearsite

  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    I think once I finish all the weapons and clean up my zone im gonna put off future gunpla and finally tackle the ds9 model kit a friend got me and then I realized it was way out of my league. It isnt anymore.

  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    So we’ve got a dishwasher moving up to the line named Chris, he’s been around for a while and then lost his work visa for 6 months ans promoting him is the onlt way he can get jours since we had a cook rage quit recently. He’s a Phillipino dude in his late 50s with an engineering degree. He can paint like a motherfucker. He was imprisoned under Dueterte and would have been executed had a childhood friend who was in the military not recognized his name on a list. But we work in an Italian restaurant and we have both seen The Sopranoes and so we’ve all started calling him Chrissy and acting like he just got made. It’s been a really fun bit. He’s nervous about the change but has been killing it. No matter where we come from in this kitchen, we all love to make fun of Italians

  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    Chef was talking about resumes that came in cause we’re hiring and he mentioned that this Russian person applied but seemed like kind of a dick just dropping off a resume, just like…said to the host ‘give this to your boss’ and left. He then corrected himself and said Ukrainian, im guessing he thought Russian cause as a Canadian i can’t tell the accent apart and im sure he cant either and then saw work history in Ukraine. Anyway, I said it was probably for the best he didnt mix that up in front of them. It is odd he would forget and go with Russian cause we have like…so many Ukrainian immigrants in town, especially post 2022 cause we already had a lot and so people had family here when the war broke out. If I hear an eastern European sounding accent, I assume Ukraine, I did before the war. Canada has a lot of Ukranians and not many Russians.

  • Goblinmancer [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    The romans saw “Jesus will forgive you as long as you repent” and be like “Damn we hunted his followers and he will still forgave us? Time to make this our state religion!”

  • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    I had a really close call today. Thought I was scheduled 5pm-12am, get to work, turns out I was scheduled 12pm-7pm. Talk to my manager about it, he was sympathetic surprisingly. He’s the manager that hareasses me all the time. I just can’t do it again. This is the worst job I’ve ever worked and has been horrible for my mental health, so I wasn’t super upset when I realized my mistake on the bus ride. More just worried because the job market is terrible right now, so if I lost this job I’d probably have to go back in the closet to even have a chance at getting another job. Shit, I had to do it to get my shitty fast food job.

  • WokePalpatine [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    Backing up all my pirated PS4 games because it’s lagging the console a lot. Probably due to a large chunk of the RAM is eating up caching the game thumbnails and stuff. And it’s affecting the actual hack method I have via a burned bluray disc. Taking forever. I think a lot of the DLC’s gone missing at some point so I’m redownloading all the DLC I can find for each game and keeping all the files nice and labelled and organized. I would have done this before if I had the HDD space to do this, or could afford the blu-rays to burn these files to disc (which if done properly you can actually install the .PKG files to the PS4 via disc even), but yeah, I didn’t have the money. I barely afforded the console itself at the time.