Artistic: ★★★★★
Entertainment: ★★★★ ☆
Comprehensive Evaluation : ★★★★★
Seven Samurai poster
At the 15th Venice Film Festival in 1954, "Seven Samurai", which was later respected by countless filmmakers, won the Silver Lion Award, along with Fellini's "The Great Road", Marlon Brando's "Docks" and Kenji Mizoguchi's "Doctor Pepper". Although "Seven Samurai" was also nominated for the Golden Lion Award at this Venice Film Festival, it did not win in the end, and the golden lion was also selected by Visconti's "Warring States Demon". At this super Venice Film Festival, the eye-catching judges gave the Golden Lion award to Italian director Renato Castellani's "Romeo and Juliet", and with the passage of time, the light of "Seven Samurai" became more and more brilliant, and the decent "Romeo and Juliet" has long been forgotten.
Poster for the 1954 edition of Romeo and Juliet
This film made 66 years ago has created a plot mode, and the group drama mode of gathering multiple people to complete the task together begins with this movie, Hollywood has remade "Seven Samurai" many times, the most famous is "Heroic Seven Dragons" in 1960, in 2016 Anthony Fukuiah remade another version of "Heroic Seven Dragons", Hong Kong has also remade a version of "Loyalty and Righteousness" starring Zheng Shaoqiu, in addition to many other imitations, such as "Twelve King Kong", "Kelly and His Heroes" (Strategic Battle), "Blood Stained Snow Mountain Fort", "Navaln Cannon", "Wild Goose Death Squad", "Eleven Arhats", etc., there are more than a dozen such films with a certain influence in film history, although there are also commercially relatively successful, but none of them have reached the height of "Seven Samurai".
Poster of the 2016 edition of "The Seven Dragons"
The reason why the follow-up works cannot reach the level of "Seven Samurai", not only because this 3-hour and 27-minute movie is complicated and not messy, there are many characters without face, the details are rich and the scenes are magnificent, but also because this film carries the background of the changes of the times and Kurosawa's personal understanding of the samurai spirit, compared to those films that imitate the trend, this "Seven Samurai" In addition to the climax of the plot and fascinating, the behavior motivations of all the characters in the movie are closely related to the background of the times. All the samurai who appeared had distinct personalities, even several of the main peasants in the village were given their own personality characteristics, the film was also quite mature in audiovisual language, every minute of the film had a remarkable point, more than 3 hours of the film in one go, without dragging mud and water, Kurosawa Akira once said that he was most satisfied with the two works, one is "The Desire to Live", the other is "Seven Samurai", it just so happens that these two movies are starred by Shimura Joe, but the content of the two films is one positive and one opposite, forming an intertextuality.
"Desire to Live" starring Joe Shimura
The main theme of "The Desire to Live" is "the pursuit of life, the appeal of desire", the protagonist in the film is separated from the muddy group, struggles alone to repay the society, and obtains the meaning of life when people are dying, and "Seven Samurai" is just like the reverse mirror image of "The Desire of Life", which is Kurosawa's reflection on the samurai spirit advocated by the Japanese people, the samurai choose to fight for the peasants because of their promises and morals, and the individuals who are separated from the group in the battle cannot survive, and most of them are eventually killed and injured. The helplessness of the surviving samurai also dissipated the meaning of the previous efforts, so the guards would say the famous line: This time it is also a defeat, and it is the peasants who win, not us.
The winner in the end is the farmer
The historical background of The Seven Samurai
Before further analyzing why the film is so successful, it is necessary to have a simple understanding of the decline of the Japanese samurai, so that the motivations of the characters in the film can be better analyzed from the background of the era in which the film is located.
Both the Japanese samurai and the European knights were born in the eighth century AD, but the motives and responsibilities of the two were very different, the knights were the product of the Western European powers to strengthen the national military strength, through economic and military reforms to form a strong, knight-led core of the army, internal suppression of peasant uprisings, external colonial expansion; on the contrary, the Japanese samurai is the product of fierce land disputes, after the land was privately occupied, the authority of the central government was greatly weakened, The land-owning nobles all had military power to compete with the central government, and the samurai existed mainly to protect the nobles and their territories. During the Warring States period, rulers needed samurai to expand their territory, and samurai were greatly valued and treated far better than civilians. In 1192, the Genrai dynasty established the Kamakura shogunate, and the era of samurai dictatorship officially arrived.
Source Lai Dynasty
In 1603, the Tokugawa shogunate was established by the shogun tokugawa Ieyasu in Edo (present-day Tokyo), ending the warring states dispute, and in the late 18th century, during the toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa shogunates, the privileges of the samurai were further magnified, and the "Sword Hunting Order" was promulgated, confiscating the weapons in the hands of the peasants, requiring the peasants to concentrate on farming, and the peasant merchants must respect the noble status of the samurai, and the samurai also had the right to "shoot and kill".
On October 14, 1867, Tokugawa Keiki resigned as shogun and the Tokugawa shogunate, which had ruled Japan for 265 years, fell. On January 3, 1868, Emperor Meiji issued a imperial edict requiring the Tokugawa shogunate to return the land, and in 1871 began a reform to abolish the prefecture, known as the Meiji Restoration. The purpose of abolishing the prefecture was to weaken the power of the local nobility, and the samurai community became the focus of the reform, which was undoubtedly a huge blow to the samurai, and the government also proposed a "conscription system" to establish an "imperial army" loyal to the emperor as a standing army, which led to the abolition of the most important functions of the samurai.
On September 23, 1871, the Meiji government issued the "Order to Distribute the Sword Removal", and in 1876 issued the "Abolition Of the Sword Order", the full name of which was "The Great Ceremony Clothing Shōnen Shōnen Shōnen Kōshū Kōnen Shōnen Shōgun Shōnen Shōnen Shōgun Shōshū Shōgun Xi Xinglong committed suicide after the defeat of the army, and he was also known as the "last samurai" and "righteous man", after which the group of samurai completely declined. Ken Watanabe' role as Ken Watanabe in the 2004 Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai is based on Saigo Takamori.
Saigo Takamori
The story of "Seven Samurai" takes place during the Sengoku period in Japan, around 1467-1615, during the reign of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, which was also the heyday of the samurai's great privileges, and nearly 300 years before the fall of the samurai due to the promulgation of the "Abolition of the Sword Order", so the historical background in the film is not the historical moment when the samurai were about to die out as many people understand.
A bowl of white rice can invite samurai
In "Seven Samurai", the peasants asked the fallen samurai to protect them on the condition of providing white rice, and in the historical background at that time, just the meager remuneration for eating a full meal was equivalent to humiliating them for the samurai class, which was absolutely impossible to accept, but Kurosawa Akira gave high respect to the samurai spirit of the fallen samurai, although he had realized that he would fight the 40 horses of the bandits with 7 people, but the fallen samurai still accepted this extremely difficult task without fear. Because for a true samurai, the most important thing is to be responsible and complete the task, the samurai should have no fear of death, death is only a means of fulfilling responsibilities and completing tasks, and failing to complete tasks is a more terrible thing than death.
But the "seven samurai" are all samurai who have lost their territories and lords, which means that they don't know who to serve, they just simply have a sense of responsibility to complete the task to protect the peasants, in fact, their fate is extremely fragile, with the political situation and the turmoil of national policies and swaying with the wind, they are not like the peasants rooted in the land, the peasants' ideas and practices are immutable, they can keep everything as long as they try to keep the land, when the wandering samurai are left alone, They can kill for a set of armor and a gun, when faced with strong bandits, they are weak enough to offer food and even their wives' hands, even if they are samurai who promise to help them, they can hide wine and delicious things behind their backs, so although the peasants seem to be vulnerable groups at the mercy of the robbers, Kurosawa still mercilessly criticizes the inferiority of this group, and the director also points out the cowardice, selfishness, hypocrisy, and cruelty of the peasants in the film.
Character analysis of the Seven Samurai
The names of the seven samurai in the film are: Shimada Kanbei, Kuzo, Katsushiro Okamoto, Goro Katayama, Shichirōji, Hayashida Heihachi, and Kikuchiyo.
We can notice that some of their names, such as Kuzo, Shichirōji, Kikuchiyo, etc., have no surnames, indicating that these are temporary names, at that time only nobles could have surnames, and samurai would be given surnames by the emperor or superiors after their meritorious service, such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi's original name was Hashiba Hideyoshi, and the emperor gave the surname Toyotomi. According to Kanbei's calculations, Kikuchiyo is clearly the name of a thirteen-year-old girl, which also implies that Kikuchiyo could not have belonged to the samurai class in the first place.
In the film, the seven samurai are also carefully arranged by Akira Kurosawa to represent different samurai spirits.
Survey Guard
Kanbei is the leader of the Seven Samurai, he is the representative of the orthodox Bushido spirit promoted by Akira Kurosawa, he is witty and brave, with super leadership skills, but he has never won a battle, and finally failed to escape the fate of becoming a ronin, his prototype is the sword saint Kami Izumi Nobutsune (1508 - 1577), the plot of his saving the child in the movie is almost the same as in the legend, according to legend, when Kamizumi Nobuyuki passed through a small village, he found a riot in the village, because a robber took the child as a hostage, So Kamizumi Nobuyuki shaved off his hair and pretended to be a monk, seduced and subdued the robbers with rice balls. Before the promulgation of the "Order to Distribute the Sword Removal", the shaving of the samurai's hair had a great impact on the identity of the samurai, which also shows that the kanbei in order to save the civilians did not hesitate to abandon the so-called samurai identity, it is precisely because of his integrity and courage to dedicate, so he will agree to the peasants' requests, and in his own way to gather 7 samurai, in the face of the most fierce battle, he did not forget to let everyone relax, and when defeating the robbers, he did not get carried away, but very soberly aware that the peasants are the ultimate victors. He is the embodiment of the image of the perfect samurai in Kurosawa's mind, representing the idealized side of the samurai spirit.
Goro Hyo
The role of Goro Bingwei in the Seven Samurai is like a staff officer, he became a member of the Seven Samurai because of his admiration for the character and character of the Kanbei Guards, he easily saw through the entrance test designed by kanbei, indicating that his strategy and wisdom were super high, Gorobei later became the consultant and right-hand man of the Kanbei Guards, as the deputy of the Kanbei Guards to help the Kanbei guards to line up, charge when needed most, and eventually die on the battlefield. The film does not let the Kanbei who represents the spirit of Bushido die, but Gorobei has quite a similarity with the Kanbei, in fact, Gorobei is another projection of the Kanbei in combat skills and strategy, and he is killed by the enemy instead of the Kanbei as part of the Bushido spirit that is no longer accepted by history.
Shichiroji
Qilangji represents friendship and loyalty, he accepted the invitation of The Kanbei to join from the beginning as an old comrade and friend of the Kanbei, and the film also mentions that Shichirōji and the Kanbei have been separated for many years, but when they meet, they are still like old friends, and the loyalty to friendship shows the moral code of Shichiroji as a samurai. And Qilangji is also another projection of the Kanbei guard, and the strategy and war skills represented by the Goro Guards are different, Qilangji represents the experience, loyalty and friendship of the Kanbei guards, the film shows the previous experience of the Kanbei guards through the dialogue between Qilangji and the Kanbei guards, he can finally survive, it is also specially arranged by the director, he projects the character, ability and experience of the Kanbei guards who are not serving the war, these are acceptable in the era of peace, so at the end of the film, He survived along with the guards who represented the spirit of Bushido.
Long hidden
Kuzo represents the strongest fighting power of the seven samurai, Kuzo has a "Hidden" word in his name, his prototype is also borrowed from the famous Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, the stunt of one-hit must-kill undoubtedly pays tribute to the legend of Miyamoto Musashi's decisive battle on Iwakushi Island, Kuzo is strong in martial arts, effortlessly decide the outcome of the battle, easily snatch the fire bolt from the enemy, more commendable is that Kuzo is strong in martial arts but never shows off, after making battle achievements, he silently goes to the side to rest, which is the realm of martial arts masters. Kuzo's eventual death in battle also meant that the most important skill on which samurai made a living, martial arts, would no longer be decisive in the future.
Ping eight
Heihachi is undoubtedly the most optimistic of the seven samurai, Shichirōji is also the closest samurai to the commoners, after becoming a ronin, he made a living by chopping wood, skilled wood cutting skills show that he often engaged in such agricultural work that is completely inconsistent with the identity of the samurai, the flag that symbolizes the seven samurai is sewn by him, it is difficult to imagine that a samurai will be proficient in chopping wood and sewing and repairing the tailoring work, indicating that he has completely given up the identity of the samurai from the heart, and the earliest of the seven samurai to die is Hayashida Heihachi, which is also a hint to the end of the samurai behind Perhaps for the samurai, their future does not allow them to be too optimistic, Heihachi was shot and killed in the film to 2 hours and 19 minutes, the first of the samurai to die under the gun, in fact, all 4 samurai who died later died under the gun, and each of the dead samurai died because they were separated from the collective, which was also deliberately arranged by the director, indicating that the samurai can no longer use their martial arts to resist the modern musket, and the samurai group will be eliminated by history.
Katsushiro
The young Katsushiro represents the growth and future of the Bushido spirit. From the fact that he quietly gave the money to the peasants who had stolen the rice, it can be seen that Katsushiro comes from a wealthy family, and it also shows that he has deep sympathy and compassion for the peasants, he is very young and has no combat experience, Katsushiro was stunned when he first saw Kuzo kill his opponent in the battle, he was stunned, and also made him admire Kuzo who was highly skilled in martial arts, when he asked Kanbei to be his teacher, Kanbei did not immediately agree, but later he was always protecting him and teaching him, so in the fiercest battle, Kanbei did not let him fight, it was precisely because he thought that he did not have enough combat experience; another immature place of Katsushiro was his love affair with Shino, he did not realize that his class status was different from Shino, his real transformation would continue until the end of the story, the former lover Shino did not fight with him, but returned to the farmland to do farm work, at this time he realized that he and Shino did not belong to the same class, Katsushiro, who represents a samurai who is learning and transforming, is also one of the last three samurai to survive.
Chiyo Kiku
Kikuchiyo is obviously not a samurai, the film does not recognize his samurai identity from beginning to end, the only one in the flag is marked as a triangle, not the circle of other samurai, at the end of the movie, the way of inserting the sword in his grave is also different from other samurai, he is not good at martial arts, he can't tame horses, he can't stand guard, he is not a qualified samurai at all, and failing to pass the entrance test of the guards also shows that he is quite inexperienced in combat, and his sword is much longer than all samurai's swords. Maybe this will make him more confident, and his posture of carrying the sword is different from all samurai, the samurai generally carries the sword on his waist, he carries the sword on his shoulder, and even when he chooses a name in the samurai family tree that he does not know where to pick up, he also mistakenly chooses a female name, which shows that he does not know much about the samurai group, but he is handy in dealing with farmers, and the extremely skilled methods of doing farm work also reveal that he should be born into a peasant family. However, he hated the narrowness of the peasants and wanted to enter the samurai class, he said to others that he forgot his name, in fact, he was unwilling to admit his peasant identity, and the state between the peasant and the samurai allowed him to communicate smoothly between the two, and he could also point out the problems of the two to the point, he both understood the peasants' ideas, and could use the samurai's behavior mode to help the peasants, in the movie he inadvertently revealed that he was an orphan, and finally died with the robbers. It is also a revenge for the painful experience of becoming an orphan as a child.
The audiovisual language of the Seven Samurai
The reason why "Seven Samurai" is a great movie, in addition to the specific historical background and exquisite character settings, Kurosawa Akira presented in this film mature, solid and excellent audiovisual language greatly improved the artistic level of this movie, the film everywhere has a memorable place, the whole movie is like a flowing water, but careful study, but can find that almost every shot is full of design, even the subtitles at the beginning of the film are carefully designed, horizontal and vertical subtitles as if to break free of the screen, It symbolizes the different behavior patterns and personality characteristics of the seven samurai, as well as the chaotic strife of the Warring States period.
Horizontal and vertical subtitles
Elaborate compositions abound in the film, and the first shot of the film is the robber appearing on the distant horizon, directly bringing the film into the atmosphere of the epic movie; the second appearance of the robber is also on the horizon, and the large number of robbers is breathless and calm when the horizon gushes out, feeling the invisible force.
The robber makes his first appearance
The robber appears for the second time
At the beginning of the film, the villagers, threatened by the bandits, kneel helplessly together and form a circle to represent their unity, which later became the shape of the flag representing the samurai.
The peasants knelt in a circle
At the moment when the young Katsushiro and Shino fall in love, the wood in the background of the picture forms a triangle, and the two people who love each other are equal at this time, without class differences.
The relationship between the two is now a stable triangle
The film's scenes sometimes even serve as an expression of emotion, and the night Katsushiro and Shino are together, the burning bonfire next to them hints at the passionate love between them.
A roaring campfire between the two
The light of the fire represents their mood at the moment
Even the empty camera is expressing emotions, when shooting the thief's kidnapping of the child's grass house, you can see the strong wind blowing grass and dust, invisibly adding a little restlessness; when the farmers are blown by the wind, they can observe that the surrounding trees are not actually blown by the wind, Kurosawa Akira used the artificial wind many times in the movie to express the restless inner emotions of the characters in the picture.
The wind blew in front of the hut
Sometimes, the picture also assumes the function of narrative, this movie rarely appears in the close-up of a single character, most of the time there are more than 2 characters in the picture, and even 3 or 4 groups of characters are full of pictures, often using a picture to express everyone's expressions, actions and reactions clearly.
Four groups of characters are on the same screen
In the scene where Kikuchiyo and the samurai march toward the village, Kikuchiyo follows the samurai at a great distance behind them, unable to blend in with them, and the director uses this image to distinguish Kikuchiyo, who is not a samurai, from other samurai in this way.
Kikuchiyo, who is not a samurai, is distinguished from other samurai by the picture
Akira Kurosawa also carefully designed the position of each character, and the position of the characters in many shots and the surrounding scenery form a wonderful balance.
Wonderful composition
In order to highlight the character modeling, Kurosawa set specific actions for the main characters, among which the action of the guards was to touch the head with his hands, and this body language gave the character the characteristics of modesty, caution, taciturnness, and meticulous thinking. Kikuchiyo also has a lot of big grin movements to show the character's personal heroism and informal personality.
Kurosawa also edited the slow motion of high-speed photography and the normal speed of the action in the two action scenes in which the kanbei beheaded the kidnapped child thief and the Kuzo Bi sword, and through contrast, cleverly let the slow motion prolong the audience's surprise and cause a strong visual impact, this technique Kurosawa also used in his early "Zi Sanshiro", even if this technique was not invented by him, it must have been used first, and later Zhang Che and Wu Yusen carried forward the slow motion they learned from Kurosawa in their respective action films , formed its own film aesthetics.
Wu Yusen later learned to use slow motion in this way
Before the final battle of the film, the light rain turns into heavy rain and falls on the burning campfire on the ground, which is a highly symbolic shot, and the battle between water and fire foreshadows the fierce rain battle between the samurai and the robbers.
The battle of water and fire
However, even if it is such a high-level movie, there are actually still some things to wear, such as the scene where Kikuchiyo fishes in the river, the fish that has just been caught is motionless, obviously the fish that was hidden in advance, it is said that Toshiro Mifune hid the fish in his crotch when performing this scene, quietly pulled it out while diving, and then pretended to have just caught it;
When catching fish, I actually wear it
In addition, the scene where the robber is going to enter the village when the arrow is shot in the chest, the actor who hits the arrow has a bulging chest, which looks like a thick wooden board, and then there is a scene of the villagers being hit by the arrow, it is said that those arrows are not prop arrows, they are real arrows, specially invited archers to shoot, it seems that there is still a certain danger when performing the action scene, although the movie has a place to wear gangs, but in fact, it is not so obvious, and even if you don't know those behind-the-scenes tidbits, it is still difficult to see the gang.
The actor has thick wooden planks on his chest
The rise of post-war Japanese cinema
At the turn of the millennium, the Seven Samurai were named the first of the 100 best Japanese films of the century by the Japanese Film Shunbun.
In the "Top 100 Foreign Language Films in Film History" invited by the BBC to invite global film critics, that is, films whose dialogue is mainly not In English, "Seven Samurai" topped the list.
The Seven Samurai
It can be said that "Seven Samurai" is not only the best in Japanese film history, the best in Asian film history, but also ranked among the best in the history of world cinema, although Akira Kurosawa's other costume "Rashomon" has gained international reputation than "Seven Samurai", but the biggest achievement of "Rashomon" is to innovate in the way of narrative, from the integrity of the film, the richness of the performance, the completion of the story, the entertainment and the influence of the film, "Seven Samurai" is undoubtedly better.
Rashomon poster
In less than a decade after japan's defeat in World War II, a large number of outstanding directors emerged, represented by Akira Kurosawa, Masahira Imamura, Yasujiro Ozu, Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Nagisa Oshima, Keisuke Kinoshita, Kanto Shinto, Kunikawa, Tadao Sato, Hiroshi Inagaki, Sadao Nakayama, Toyo Abe, Tomon Uchida, Masaru Imai, and Safu Yamamoto, and "Rashomon" (directed by Akira Kurosawa) won the 24th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1951; (Directed by Sadanosuke Igusa) won the 27th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1954; Miyamoto Musashi (directed by Tai Kato) won the 28th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1956; Kenji Mizoguchi's "Nishitsuru Generation Girl", "The Tale of the Rain Moon" and "Doctor Yamana" won the highest or best film award in Venice for three consecutive years, Ichikawa Kun's "Burmese Harp" and Inagaki's "The Life of Unable to Loosen" also won in Venice, as well as "Hell's Gate" by Kenji Mizoguchi, and "Hell's Gate" by Kenji Mizoguchi. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival, Hiranosuke's "Chimney-Lined Place" in Berlin, and Masaru Imai's "Dark Days" in Moscow, this large number of excellent directors and works have promoted the rapid recovery and rise of Japanese films in the ruins of the post-war period, helped Japan build cultural self-confidence, created a golden age of Japanese cinema, and has since become a world film power.
END
Like this article, please pay attention to the headline number "Tonight Movie Companion", your likes, forwards, comments are my motivation