The seven samurai

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The seven samurai
Original title 七 人 の 侍
Shichinin no samurai
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1954
length 207 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Akira Kurosawa
script Akira Kurosawa ,
Shinobu Hashimoto ,
Hideo Oguni
production Sōjirō Motoki
music Fumio Hayasaka
camera Asakazu Nakai
cut Akira Kurosawa
occupation

More figures

The Seven Samurai ( Japanese 七 人 の 侍 , Shichinin no samurai ) is a Japanese period film by the director Akira Kurosawa from 1954 . The critically acclaimed film is considered to be one of the most famous and influential Japanese films .

action

Japan in the Azuchi Momoyama period , 1587: Bandits repeatedly raid a small farming village and plunder the crops. When the next harvest comes up, they decide to hire some samurai . Although the village cannot offer any wages other than food, they win seven fighters for the defense: the aging samurai Kambei, the young son of a samurai family Katsuhiro, Shichiroji, a friend of Kambei's, the archer Gorobei, Heihachi, the silent Kyuzo, who of Katsuhiro is admired, as is the farmer's son and would-be samurai Kikuchiyo.

The social division between the samurai as a warrior class and the poor peasants is expressed several times. If the peasants approached the samurai with great subservience while hiring, the villagers initially hid in their homes when the seven fighters arrived. In addition, some of the farmers fear that the samurai could get involved with their wives or daughters. Nevertheless, under Kambei's leadership, the samurai begin to fortify the village, equip the villagers with bamboo spears, and give them basic combat lessons.

A temporary crisis ensues when, to supplement the equipment in the village, hidden samurai armor and weapons emerge that the peasants had removed from previously slain samurai. In view of the indignation of the rest of the samurai, Kikuchiyo emphatically denounces the cunning of the peasants on the one hand, who pretend to be excessive poverty while keeping secret supplies and also kill samurai; on the other hand, he blames the brutalization of the peasants on the poverty and suffering brought upon the villages by wars and thus also by samurai. The seven fighters continue their defense work. When they find out that the farmers themselves do not even have to eat of the rice with which they feed the samurai, they give their leftover food to hungry villagers.

When the farmers have brought in the barley harvest , the discovery of three bandit scouts heralds the approach of the attack. With the captured horses of the scouts, three samurai forestall the attack and kill several bandits in their hiding place, but they also have to accept the loss of Heihachi.

A little later the bandits attack the village. Under the leadership of Kambei, the samurai and the peasants repel these and subsequent waves of attack; Gorobei is killed in the process. The night before the expected decisive battle, there is excitement when the young Katsuhiro and the farmer's daughter Shino are discovered by their father together. The following morning the last bandits attack. The attackers can be killed without exception, but several villagers as well as Kyuzo and Kikuchiyo are also killed.

In the final scene the peasants plant rice with music and singing. Katsuhiro meets Shino again, but she ignores him. Kambei and Shichiroji look at the scenery; Kambei thinks that the sword warriors also lost the fight and that the farmers alone won. His last look before the film fades out is at the graves of the four fallen samurai.

Emergence

The Seven Samurai was one of the most expensive Japanese films of all time. Over 3000 participants and one year of shooting time consumed around 20 million yen . The box office income in Japan was around $ 272,000. The original length of the film was 200 minutes. Kurosawa used the working method with three cameras running at the same time, which is characteristic of his later works. This technique is used in the numerous battle scenes in particular, since, according to Kurosawa, it would have been impossible to plan all the action and movement sequences in advance.

reception

The theme of the film was repeatedly taken up and varied in different film genres ; best known is the western The Magnificent Seven by John Sturges from 1960. This was remake in 2016 of the same name . In addition, there is Winnetou and his friend Old Firehand as part of the Karl May films from 1966 , a science fiction adaptation under the title Sador - Ruler in Space (1980) and the 3D animated film The Great Crawling (1998) . The Bollywood film Sholay is also based on the plot .

In 2004, an adaptation of the film as an anime entitled Samurai 7 was broadcast on Japanese television .

Stephen King took up the motif of the film in his novel Wolfsmond , published in 2003 , in which "Gunslingers" save a threatened village of rice farmers from regular attacks by the "wolves". Stephen King himself explains the reference to The Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven in the afterword of the novel.

In the animated series The Clone Wars there is an episode called "Bounty Hunters", which is dedicated to Akira Kurosawa and deals with the same problem: a village is robbed of its crops by pirates, the Jedi and bounty hunters teach the inhabitants to defend themselves, Finally, Obi-Wan Kenobi points out that the farmers defended their village.

Also Eiichiro Oda attacks the seven samurai in his manga series One Piece , into which he shall designate a central element of the offense under this.

The film is ranked 19th among the best films of all time in the Internet Movie Database .

criticism

The Lexicon of International Films describes "Kurosawa's fascinating samurai epic" as "a gripping adventure drama, epic poem and philosophical meditation at the same time". The Protestant film observer drew the following conclusion: “A masterfully designed film ballad with moving human content. Expressly recommended to adults. "

Awards

The seven samurai have been nominated for numerous awards worldwide, including two Oscars for Best Equipment and Best Costume and three British Film Academy Awards for Best Film and Best Foreign Actor ( Toshirō Mifune and Takashi Shimura ). He emerged as the winner at the Venice Film Festival , where he won the Silver Lion. At the “ Mainichi Eiga Concours ”, Seiji Miyaguchi won an award for best supporting actor. The film was also honored with awards in Finland in 1959: Akira Kurosawa was honored with the Jussi as best foreign-language director, Takashi Shimura as best foreign-language actor .

running time

There are several versions of the film with different running times. The German theatrical version (with German synchronization) is 155 minutes long and available on DVD. Numerous scenes are missing in this version. The Japanese original version is 207 minutes long and only exists in Japanese with respective subtitles ( subtitles ). The international long version is 193 minutes long and also only available in subtitles.

In Switzerland, a 201-minute long “restored integral version” has been available on Blu-ray with German subtitles since April 30, 2013 (FSK 16).

In the UK there is a 207-minute steel Blu-ray version with English. Subtitles available. A The Criterion Collection DVD (3 discs) and Blu-ray (2 discs) with a length of 207 minutes (NOT RATED) is available in country code A (USA). This also contains a documentation on the creation and influence of the film.

literature

  • Stefan Otto: Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai . Wiedleroither, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-923990-04-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for The Seven Samurai . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2007 (PDF; test number: 27 063 DVD).
  2. ↑ Seven Samurai (1956) - Box Office Mojo. Accessed July 31, 2019 .
  3. ↑ In 19th place in the IMDb (as of February 11, 2019)
  4. ^ Catholic Institute for Media Information and Catholic Film Commission for Germany (ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Cinema, television, video, DVD . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-86150-455-3 , p. 2822 .
  5. ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 66/1962