In stark contrast to the previous film, this film spanned the length of a typical modern epic - impressive for a 1950s black and white Japanese film. Seven Samurai had moments that dragged, and it took upwards of an hour to establish the track of this film, but in the end, the relationships formed with each of the characters more than pay off. The final battle is worth the wait, and becomes, as mentioned above, intensely personal. Each of the seven characters fills a niche in the team and in the storyline, a fantastic mixture of honor, pride, respect, skill, humor, adolescence, and experience - all done without cliche or over the top representation. The only thing that may have been over the top was the acting of the peasants, playing into modern stereotypifications since placed on Japanese culture. In watching this film, I wished I had a better knowledge of samurai culture and history, though this film was thoroughly entertaining with or without it. This was the first Kurosawa film I've seen, and knowing him to be the legend of Japanese cinema that he is, this will not be the last.
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1/5/2010
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2 comments:
Glad you got to finally see this. It remains one of my favorite recently viewed films.
This one has been sitting on my shelf for awhile. I need to swallow the runtime and just get into it. I liked Kurosawa's DREAMS (at least, most of the segments) -- so I've been meaning to check out the epic he's famous for.
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