Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai (1954) Directed by Akira Kurosawa Starring Takashi Shimada, Toshiro Mifune, Isao Kimura, and Seiji Miyaguchi. Story: Seven Samurai follows a group of farmers who heard a group of bandits talking about raiding their village and in desperation they try to find samurai. The Bad: There is an intermission about two hours into the film and although I've heard reasons why this intermission was here I personally think it was just there to show off the score. It just watered down my immersion and it made the pacing weird. The Good: "In the end we lost this battle too... The victory belongs to those peasants, not to us." This is the final line of the movie. The movie is filled with good laughs, fun action, and romance. But the movie ends on this bitter note. You can interpret this movie in many ways but this movie to me is about kindness and how we shouldn't expect anything in return. And although our samurai had the best intentions they still asked for payment. And even though the payment was something as small as rice it still took at tole on the farmers. And even the farmers aren't as simple as hard working poor folk. They kept secrets from the samurai such as having more than just rice and also having armor. And this is explained to us by Kikuchiyo who is easily the best character in the movie. He is so complex and his redemption arc is amazing. He goes from a drunken wannabe samurai to a fearless hero who sacrifices himself for the women of the village. One of the hardest parts of this review was picking a thumbnail. The cinematography was so good that I struggled to pick a thumbnail. Need I say more.