Criterion Collection: Seven Samurai [Blu-ray] [US Import]

This review is for the Criterion Collection US import (region A) blu-ray. An important note: if your blu-ray player is not region A or multi-region, this disc won't play as I found out. I literally had to buy a new blu-ray player to watch it, but it was worth it.There are many far better reviews than I could write for this classic film so I will simply review this particular release. I already own the BFI DVD version which is 190 minutes long whereas this Criterion version is 207 minutes long so this is a more complete cut of the original film. Criterion have done an incredible restoration job. The picture is clean and stable, there is some occasional light grain but it's subtle and rarely noticeable most of the time. I'm glad to say there is no obvious digital noise reduction (DNR) which has caused some controversy with certain 4K releases of other films. There are occasional scratches and marks on the film but they don't detract from the viewing experience. In fact it's the opposite, you feel like you're seeing it exactly as it should be. And the close-ups of faces is amazing. You can see so much detail, it sometimes looks like it was filmed yesterday. And this is a film that was made over 70 years ago! The audio is also excellent. It's a little bass-heavy which is typical of old audio recordings on magnetic tape but again it's clean with no hiss or distortion and the orchestral soundtrack has never sounded so good.It's clearly been a labour of love and thank goodness because apparently the original film negatives can no longer be found. So the new digital intermediate created as part of the restoration process will preserve this important film for future generations to enjoy.

This is one of a small handful of films that transcend the label 'classic' and are essential.Seven samurais influences are many and varied like so much else that Kurosawa directed. A seemingly simple tale of a roaming band of masterless samurai find fulfilment and destiny when they agree to protect a defenceless village that is being raided by a ruthless band of marauders.Kurosawa pulled out all the stops as the action builds to a monumental and iconic final showdown fought in pouring rain.Criterion have already released this earier in their catalogue. It contained the best available print of the film and a fine commentary by film expert Michael Jeck.That commentary is included once again here, ( a wise move as it's a good one), along with an all new commentary by a group of film historians.Along with the commentaies there are 2 documentaries looking at the making of the film and it's influences that include much input from all involved and together last about 90 minutes.The sound is still mono but coherent and lively. The print however has been mastered again and is superb, black and white this may be but it looks far better than a 52 year old film has any right to.You get an awful lot for your money over the 3 discs but there is one inclusion that towers above all else here and that is the brilliant interview 'my life in cinema' where Kurosawa talks to interviewer Nagisa Oshima,(a filmaker himself), about his life and the films he has made. This allows the viewer to audience what is simply the best and most fact packed conversation with the great director available. The 2 hours running time is over before you know it.Add to this a gallery, trailers and an excellent booklet containing essays by Kurosawas favourite lead Toshiro Mifune, Sidney Lumet and Arthur Penn amongst others and this is an unmissable DVD that no collection is complete without.If you know and love Seven samurai then don't delay this is essential and if you've never seen this or are not a big fan of foreign language films then put your reservations to one side and take the plunge, you will not be disapponted.If you enjoy this then try 'Yojimbo' and ' Kagemusha' also by Kurosawa and for a fascinating and detailed insight into Kurosawa and Mifune 'The emperor and the wolf' by Stuart Galbraith IV is very well researched and written.

Alongside The Human Condition, the greatest film ever made to come out of japan in my view, other people may have a different opinion (but they're wrong lol) . The 3 hours 27 minutes goes so quickly because the story just draws you in to its brilliance. The final combat scenes in torrential rain are just spellbinding. Watch it, and love it.

This is a really great movie. I always wondered why people raved on about it......now I know. The story, the acting, the characters,the humorous antics. It's a really great movie. Because it is in b/w, don't let that deter you. Somehow, I think that it just wouldn't have had as much going for it had it been made in colour. Being about times gone by, I think it is quite fitting to have been filmed in black and white, colour would not have given it the same substance, the same feel. as what this black and white cinematography provides.

Forget the cartoon Hollywood western remake and watch the superior original classic.!

quite possibly the greatest samurai movie ever made! the level of detail & the build up to the final battle in the pouring rain is just amazing & the amount of extras you get for such an old movie puts modern discs to shame.

Absolutely ..... top ten best films ever ... yes ..easy. Nothing more to say .. this edition has the best extras, best box and add ins and the best version available. Simples

Any writer who sees the complete version of Seven Samurai would have to despair of ever doing better. It literally has everything, presented brilliantly,

A breathtaking display of work from the 1950s that showed great scope and energy for its time and still stands well today. Movies like Rebel Moon, The Magnificent Seven and so many others took inspiration from this beautiful and spectacular movie but this is where it was done the best. It's packed with strong and passionate performances from its outstanding cast and loaded with awesome battle scenes and for their time still stand well. It's a tremendously well-crafred film which is now 70 years old and still is making an impact today. It's definitely one of the neT samurai movies ever made.

The Blu-ray is region locked for US and Canada. The description on Amazon.nl — Dutch website! — does not mention it.

Es un paquete perfecto para regalar a un fan de Akira Kurasawa, trae un libro sobre la pelicula y los significados detrás de varios elementos de la pelicula. La caja es muy bonita como de coleccion.

映像も凄く綺麗し音声も聞き取りやすい。今まで出ている七人の侍のBlu-rayのなかでは間違えなく最強版だと思います。ファンの方なら是非押さえておきたいソフトです。

There are few directors who have had close to the lasting legacy that Japanese Akira Kurosawa has had. There have been many excellent film directors who have had a great influence on other directors, TV, Films and pop culture like George A. Romero, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick and Quentin Tarantion, but none has had the impact that Kurosawa has had on people, the media and pop culture and even these outstanding and influential directors were influenced by Kurosawa and his films and perhaps Kurosawa's greatest masterpiece and influential film is the Seven Samurai.The 1954 film is considered one of the most influential and best films on all time that has a lasting impact that has stood the test of time as well leaving an indelible mark on the entertainment world, but the film more than a excellently written story full of Samurai, action and drama as it deals with heavier topics than that as the Seven Samurai takes place in 1587 during the "Warring States Period". Since before the Ōnin War (1467-1477) the Ashikaga Shogunate was in decline as Japan had erupted into a continuous civil war as lords fought for power. By then 1587 Japan was in total chaos which caused the rise of ruthless warlords, bandits, wondering Ronin (Samurai warriors without masters) rape, pillaging, death and class conflict which Kurosawa showcases in the Seven Samurai. The great script co-written by Kurosawa starts out in a small farming village in the mountains. The citizens of the village learn of a band of bandits plan to raid their village when their harvest is complete later in the year and take all the harvest and food they had worked so hard on during the year. Some of the villagers want to search for and hire some Ronin samurai, but others don't want outsiders like the samurai in the village and would rather appease the bandits, and even if they agreed to hire some samurai how could they pay them. The village was just some poor mountain farming village with nothing of real value to the likes of samurai. The village elder Gisaku (Kokuten Kodo) makes a decision to hire some Ronin Samurai, but only to "find hungry samurai." as the elder puts it. A small group of villagers goes in search of some hungry samurai, but get turned away again and again at every village and town they travel to until they meet the samurai Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura) a veteran and battle hardened samurai. It takes the villagers some time, but they manage to convince Shimada to help them and Shimada and the villagers go about recruiting other samurai for the mission. Shimada brings together a rag tag team of five other samurai along with the wannabe Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune).The samurai team and villagers travel back to their village, but are not hailed as heroes and saviors and instead looked upon with distrust and suspicion. The villagers are wary of the samurai who they believe will eat what little foot they have left, sleep with their daughters and even take what they want like they bandits will who the villagers have hired the samurai to protect them from. The situation quickly worsens when the samurai learn that the villagers have robbed and killed other wondering Ronin, but it is Kikuchiyo who understands the villagers plight and puts his comrades in place explaining that the villagers have suffered so many hardships because of the noble and warrior classes that the villagers have been forced to do what they have to survive. Shimada and his fellow samurai come to a truce and begin to prepare for the coming raid of the bandits and through this begin to understand and even respect each other. When the bandits come the samurai and villagers are ready as they battle each other for two days and nights until the samurai and villagers manage to defeat the bandits, but at a high price for the samurai, for only three have survived in Kambei Shimada, Katsushirō Okamoto (Isao Kimura) and Shichirōji (Daisuke Katō). With their mission complete the three remaining samurai begin to leave the village with little or nothing to show for it and losing their friends and comrades, but Shimada and the three stop and look down at the village and the villagers who have gone back to their farming ways as if nothing has happened and then at the graves of their fallen comrades and says "Again we are defeated. The winners are those farmers. Not us."It is a fitting end to the Seven Samurai. The story is beautifully written and put to film, but admittedly when I first saw the Seven Samurai on AMC at the age of fourteen I didn't understand or know exactly what was going on. In school history classes didn't teach much about Japanese history outside of World War II, so all I had to go on was what I saw in films and anime. Still that didn't keep me from falling in love with the film. Who doesn't love samurai and a film about them along with action and killing? That along with the story made this one of my favorite films of all time and eventually made the Seven Samurai the greatest film of all time or at least in my opinion. With age came better knowledge and understanding of the film and the themes in it. Kurosawa's story does an exceptional job of showing off the tumultuous time period in Japanese history and the class conflict that came to life because of it. The lower class and poor felt betrayed, used and abandoned by the nobles and upper class of Japan as they used them for soldiers, taking their crops and taxing them with getting little or nothing in return yet Kurosawa's story also wonderfully display's their misconceptions on both the villagers and samurai's sides as well as showing both are human also. The lasting legacy from the Seven Samurai story in that it is the first film and one of the first stories about bringing together a group of men or women for a mission, and films and filmmakers have been using that concept since in the likes of The Dirty Dozen, Ocean's Eleven, The Guns of Navarone, A Bugs Life, Ronin and countless others. I guess I should point out a flaw with the story, which is extremely hard to find, but if there was one thing I could find is that the film is long at a running time of over three hours and methodically paced and I could see how some people might not like this style of filmmaking. I guess that is a flaw for some, but it isn't for me as the length and pace of the film didn't bother me at all.While the story was excellent, it would not have been so good without the remarkable acting by the Japanese cast. Takashi Shimura was outstanding as Kambei Shimada the wise leader as did Daisuke Katō who played Shichirōji another veteran samurai and Shimada's friend and lieutenant. Katō easily showcased his wonderful acting ability especially at the end of the film when he figured out he the war torn and battle hardened samurai had survived while all his younger comrades had perished. You could just tell from his display of emotion that he would have preferred to die in their place and to be honest I think he wanted to and maybe expected to die. Keiko Tsushima does a splendid acting job as Shino the daughter of a villager who falls in love with Katsushirō (Isao Kimura). Perhaps the backbone of the cast is Toshiro Mifune who played Kikuchiyo. Kikuchiyo is a would be samurai from a common birth who dreams of coming a samurai. Kikuchiyo is a lively and temperamental man who while wanting to become a samurai he also has come from the lower class and understands their plight. Mifune brilliantly brings his character to life and is perhaps the best all-around character in the film and that is lofty praise since all the characters are well written and all the actors and actresses to a tremendous job in their roles.With his direction of the Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa demonstrates the epitome of filmmaking. In the Seven Samurai Kurosawa shows growth is his directorial leadership, writing and organization from his earlier films such as Ikiru, The Quiet Duel and Rashomon. Akira Kurosawa helped write a unique and original story demonstrated his craft and leadership as he brought the story, actors, music and cinematography together perfectly to create an artistic masterpiece. With the Seven Samurai, Kurosawa truly put his stamp on filmmaking for generations to come.What more can be said about the Seven Samurai besides near that it is near perfection in filmmaking, but the Seven Samurai is more than that as it showcased a tumultuous Japan and the class conflict it brought with it along with an excellent and original story with compelling characters, beautiful cinematography and wonderfully choreographed action. People were captivated by the samurai of Japan before the Seven Samurai, but with the Kurosawa's Seven Samurai the samurai and their way of life were brought to the eyes of the world and the growing film audience in the United States and around the world. That is just one of many things that came out of the film along with the other points I talked about earlier, like the influence of the story as well as directing and filmmaking. I know the Seven Samurai is one the most beloved films of all time, but for me it is the greatest film of all time, and if the Kurosawa had never made the film I don't think we would have films like Star Wars, The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch and The 13th Warrior, or at very least they would be very different from the films we have today. I without a doubt highly recommend the Seven Samurai, and is a must if you are a true fan of movies and the filmmaking process.