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Seven Samurai

Takashi Shimura in the final battle scene

1954. Original title: Shichinin no Samurai. Director: Akira Kurosawa. Starring: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune.

This is my favourite film ever - there are few films which come close to satisfying me on so many levels. Its message, its thematic content, is in the end extremely bleak - it has a devastating finale, when the mourning surviving samurai are ignored by the villagers. This has led many to view it as a film of social commentary, akin more to Eisenstein than American westerns. It's magnificently directed, too, an absolute masterclass in filmmaking, with countless unforgettable scenes, from the glorious recruitment of the samurai through the climactic battle in the torrential rain and mud. Has there ever been such depth and density of image in a B&W film? Has there ever been a better directed movie, on all kinds of levels? What sometimes gets neglected, because of its revered classic subtitled art movie status, is that it is a thrilling and very violent action thriller, with great tension and exciting fight scenes. This wasn't made as an art film - it was at the time the most expensive film ever made in Japan, and was a big box office hit (his later Yojimbo was even more successful, one of the biggest hits in Japan ever). The comparison might just as well be with the special effects summer blockbuster, or a big superhero film.

It also has some tremendous performances - there haven't been many actors who have ever given a more powerful and fierce impression than Toshiro Mifune, star of many Kurosawa films, in this, and Takashi Shimura is as great as the senior samurai - this is a particularly extraordinary performance when you have also seen Kurosawa's previous film Ikiru, since he plays an utterly different role in that.

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