Seven Samurai

I have not done a movie review on this blog in a while, and since the lockout is hindering how much I can talk about hockey, today is a day for a movie.  The three and a half hour epic known as Seven Samurai is Akira Kurosawa's most famous work and takes a lot of the glamour out of the samurai that Hollywood puts on it.  The basic plot is that there is a village of farmers that need some samurais to help fend off some bandits.  This leads to seven out of work samurais to band together and protect them.  Up until the first battles begin with the bandits, Kurosawa focuses on the struggles that the samurais have in trying to gain the trust of the farmers, who themselves aren't exactly innocent in their dealings with past protectors.  The samurais do their job, but not without paying a steep price, as one samurai notes that he has lost every battle.  It becomes clear what he means at the end, when the final scene is focused on the four graves of the seven samurai who were slain in battle.

The pacing of the movie is deliberate, which may turn off some people, but Kurosawa is careful to not leave out any critical detail in the movie, something that was also present in Ikiru, a movie I reviewed earlier.  If you have the time and patience, do yourself a favor and check out Seven Samurai.