Seven Samurai (七人の侍)

Seven Samurai (七人の侍)

Directed By: Akira Kurosawa

Released: April 26, 1954

            Seven Samurai (七人の侍), is placed during the Sengoku Period, where farmers are being threatened by bandits. The farmers think of their options on how to stop the bandits, until the old man in the town suggest bringing in samurai. There are two parts to this film; the first part – farmers looking for second samurai, while the second part of the film is the battle – samurai and farmers versus the bandits. Each of the samurai that decide to help the farmers against the bandits each have a distinct character and it creates a mood for the audience to pick a favorite samurai.

            To understand the time period and how things got to the way they were, starting at Tokugawa period, we can see in the film why the peasants were scared at first of the samurais. The Tokugawa era had reflected a lot of death, violence, and no peasants were able to use weapons, (Phillips & Stringer n.d). In the film, when the samurai arrive to the village, the villagers are nowhere to be seen. The two villagers that are with the samurai try and rally the peasants, but with no outcome, the peasants stay hidden. The group then visits the old man, who tells them that even if they have come to protect, the peasants are still cautious and nervous of the samurai who are there to protect them.

            The samurai in the film are all romin (master less) samurai. When the four villagers visit a town to find samurai, they begin realizing the difficulty of finding them and with what they have offer to the samurai that do decide to help, is rather a disappointment. Typically master less samurai still wanted to be considered “better” and would look down on the lower class (Williams n.d). In the film, we seen it when one of the villagers tries asking a samurai, when all he has to offer is rice. The samurai pushes the villager away because helping out a peasant to him would not make him look “better.”

            The first samurai they ask is Kambei, who they watch kill a thief. With persistence, they are able to retrieve a samurai. Even though the villagers can only offer rice, the samurai  still accepts. The journey from then on seems to be an interesting one. As one samurai practices his skills, the other reaches out to friends to help.

            Seven Samurai, seems to revolve on fighting for what matters. The villagers are desperate has they have given food to the bandits, and one of the villager’s wife. The villagers are fighting for their life, while the samurai seem to be there just for help. Love between a samurai and a villager dies at the end of the film, and by the end of the film the samurai deal with loss; while the villagers are celebrating. Where the film ends, I think brings up the question ‘Why aren’t the villagers also grieving with the samurai?’ – In several other scenes before, the villagers were grieving over the lost samurai, but by the end of the film they are seen singing and planting rice while the three samurai left are in mourning. The villagers seemed to have taken the samurai for granted.

           

Reference

Phillips, Alastair, and Julian Stringer. “Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts.” Seven Samurai and Six Women, file:///Users/nessie/Downloads/5-10 Martinez - Seven Samurai and Six Women (1).pdf.

Williams, Matt. “Warrior Puppets: The Samurai of the Tokugawa Shogunate.” Cultural Diffusion and Its Effects on Japan, www.samurai-archives.com/wap.html.