Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 七人の侍) is a Japanese jidaigeki film that Akira Kurosawa made for the Toho studio and that premiered in 1954. The original Japanese version, with an intermission, runs 207 minutes. The story is set in 1586, in the sengoku period. A farming village threatened by bandits hires a group of ronin to defend it. While preparing, Kurosawa read about samurai whom farmers had hired for such protection. Takashi Shimura plays the group's leader Kambei Shimada, Toshiro Mifune plays Kikuchiyo and Seiji Miyaguchi plays the master swordsman Kyuzo. The swordplay for the film was prepared by Yoshio Sugino, master of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu school. His choreography departed from earlier film duels influenced by kabuki and aimed at the most realistic depiction of sword combat possible. Kurosawa filmed the large battle scenes with three cameras from different angles and with telephoto lenses to capture the movement of the crowd, and joined the footage in the edit. He shot the final battle as the last scene of the film, in the middle of winter, over about two months in snow and under artificial rain, when the crew risked frostbite. Shooting the whole film took 148 days. At the 1954 Venice Film Festival Kurosawa won the Silver Lion for direction for the film.

Martial arts in this work

Fight choreography

Yoshio Sugino (1904–1998), whose main school was Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu, was put in charge of teaching swordsmanship to the actors in 1953. At first he shared the work with Junzo Sasamori, who withdrew because of other commitments; we have not been able to establish which school Sasamori belonged to. Sugino is also credited on The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo and Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy. Seiji Miyaguchi plays the master swordsman Kyuzo, whom the film presents as an exceptionally skilled swordsman. He was mainly a stage actor who had never used or worn a sword before filming. For this role he won the Mainichi award for best supporting actor. Shooting was preceded by four weeks of rehearsals, during which the actors never stepped out of role or out of costume.

Influence

Inuhiko Yomota writes that Seven Samurai created a template for the action film. According to Yoshimoto, Kurosawa innovated the jidaigeki genre with new types of sword duels. Remakes and adaptations followed the film. Lou Morheim bought the rights to it and from them came the film The Magnificent Seven (1960); a film of the same title followed in 2016. Other adaptations are Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and the anime Samurai 7. The Indian film Sholay (1975) drew inspiration from Seven Samurai.

People and martial arts

• Akira KurosawaDirector
• Takashi ShimuraActor — as Kambei Shimada· Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu (portrays the art on screen)
• Toshiro MifuneActor — as Kikuchiyo· Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu (portrays the art on screen)
• Seiji MiyaguchiActor — as Kyuzo· Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu (portrays the art on screen)
• Yoshio SuginoTechnical advisor· Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu (real practitioner)
• Junzo SasamoriTechnical advisor

Awards

• Won · Benátský filmový festival, Stříbrný lev za režii (Akira Kurosawa) (1954)
• Won · Mainichi Film Awards, nejlepší herec ve vedlejší roli (Seiji Miyaguchi) (1955)