NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� Akira Kurosawa鈥檚 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. But despite its age, the vitality and fleet-footed movement of Kurosawa鈥檚 epic is still breathtaking.
To watch it again is to be swept along, all over again, by its flowing action and breadth of vision. Just as swiftly as Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura), the noble samurai leader of the seven, sprints this way and that in the climactic battle, 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� moves 鈥� man, does it move. It flies through rice fields and down wooded pathways. Kurosawa鈥檚 camera doesn鈥檛 anticipate where the action is running so much as chase headlong after it.
For many of its admirers, has likewise been a kind of pursuit. It鈥檚 not that Kurosawa鈥檚 movie is so elusive 鈥� it鈥檚 a fairly straightforward tale that states its meaning plainly. Its mystery is more the kind reserved for a grand monument whose existence seems as unfathomable as it is undeniable.
鈥淪even Samurai,鈥� a 207-minute epic about a 16th-century farm community that turns to a band of samurai to defend itself from marauding bandits, has seemed to always be here. It鈥檚 about as lodged in movie canon as possible. Any beginner list for world cinema probably includes it. In the of critics and filmmakers, it鈥檚 slid slightly but not much. In 2022, it ranked No. 20, fittingly right alongside 鈥淎pocalypse Now,鈥� whose director, , is one of Kurosawa鈥檚 most devoted acolytes.
Coppola and his contemporaries like and worshipped Kurosawa. Scorsese once described 鈥渢he shock of that level of mastery鈥� when he encountered Kurosawa鈥檚 movies in the 1950s. Later generations of filmmakers have had similar reactions. Alexander Payne called 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� a thunderbolt that changed his life. After seeing it as a young man, : 鈥淚 will never climb a mountain that high but I want to be on that mountain.鈥�
鈥淣o one has come near it,鈥� the critic Pauline Kael wrote years ago 鈥� a judgement that still holds.
This summer, timed to the 1954 film鈥檚 70th anniversary, a new restoration of 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� is playing in theaters beginning Wednesday in New York and expanding around the country July 12. It鈥檚 a chance to revisit a stone-cold classic in all its big-screen glory.
Affection, of course, isn鈥檛 universal for 鈥淪even Samurai.鈥� Some quarters of critics will always prefer Ozu or Mizoguchi. Kurosawa鈥檚 appeal in the West has always been in part because he, himself, was steeped in Hollywood genre films. Kurosawa, who made 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� after the masterworks of 鈥淩ashomon鈥� (1950) and 鈥淚kiru鈥� (1952), was influenced by John Ford鈥檚 films. Westerns, in turn, took after Kurosawa鈥檚 masterpiece, beginning with the 1960 John Sturges remake, 鈥淭he Magnificent Seven,鈥� a film that took the American title from the initial U.S. release of 鈥淪even Samurai," for which Toho Studios cut 50 minutes.
The long influence of 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� can be seen everywhere from the sideways wipe transitions of 鈥淪tar Wars鈥� to Pixar鈥檚 鈥淎 Bug鈥檚 Life.鈥� And, given how many movies since have taken more superficial approaches to its band-of-warriors-assemble narrative, a pessimistic view of 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� could lament it as a forerunner to today鈥檚 spectacle-first big-budget movies. Shot in 148 days spread out over an entire year, 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� was at its time the most expensive Japanese film ever made, and one of its most popular at its box office.
But 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� shouldn鈥檛 have to pay for its paler imitations. Watching Kurosawa鈥檚 masterpiece again, what鈥檚 startling is just how much it remains in a class by itself. You could point to particular elements 鈥� The choreography! The rain! Toshiro Mifune! 鈥� but it goes deeper than the vast sum of its many parts.
When Kurosawa decided to make what would be his first samurai film, Japan was just emerging from postwar American occupation. The samurai film had gone somewhat dormant during that period, and 鈥淪even Samurai鈥� would help reestablish it.
But Kurosawa's film, which was written by him with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni after a lengthy period of research, juggles themes of individualism and sacrifice for the common good that resonated in postwar Japan. 鈥淪even Samurai,鈥� though, is closer to movie myth than local legend. Its ultimate battleline isn't between the samurai-assisted villagers and the bandits but lies in the tension between the samurai and the villagers, who anxiously hide their women from the hired warriors and who, in the end, celebrate a victory that's different than that of the samurai.
鈥淚n the end, we lost this battle, too,鈥� a surviving samurai says.
鈥淪even Samurai,鈥� hopeful and tragic at once, is less about a battle of good vs. evil than it is a timeless soldier truth. The samurai don't, as the villagers do, return to normal life. And for those that perish face down in the mud 鈥� moments that Kurosawa pauses to linger on, a perspective Michael Mann would later adopt in the deaths of 鈥淗eat鈥� 鈥� destiny is particularly cruel. In this eternally kinetic film, its moments of stillness are often the most profound.
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Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
