| Seven Samurai | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |||||
| Japanese name | |||||
| Kanji | 七人の侍 | ||||
| |||||
| Directed by | Akira Kurosawa | ||||
| Written by |
| ||||
| Produced by | Sōjirō Motoki | ||||
| Starring | |||||
| Cinematography | Asakazu Nakai | ||||
| Edited by | Akira Kurosawa | ||||
| Music by | Fumio Hayasaka | ||||
Production company | |||||
| Distributed by | Toho | ||||
Release date |
| ||||
Running time | 207 minutes (with intermission) | ||||
| Country | Japan | ||||
| Language | Japanese | ||||
| Budget | ¥210 million ($580,000)[1] or US$656,000[2] | ||||
| Box office | Japan rentals: ¥268.2 million[3][4] ($2.3 million) USA: $833,533 | ||||
Seven Samurai (Japanese: 七人の侍, Hepburn: Shichinin no Samurai) is a 1954 Japanese epic samurai action film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Taking place in 1586[a] in the Sengoku period of Japanese history, it follows the story of a village of desperate farmers who seek to hire samurai to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.
At the time, the film was the most expensive film made in Japan. It took a year to shoot and faced many difficulties. It was the second-highest-grossing domestic film in Japan in 1954. Many reviews compared the film to westerns.[5]
Seven Samurai is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films in cinema history. Since its release, it has consistently ranked highly in critics' lists of greatest films, such as the BFI's Sight & Sound and Rotten Tomatoes polls.[6][7][8][9] It was also voted the greatest foreign-language film of all time in BBC's 2018 international critics' poll.[10] It is regarded as one of the most "remade, reworked, and referenced" films in cinema.[11]
- ^ Ryfle, Steve; Godziszewski, Ed (2017). Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa. Wesleyan University Press. p. 105. ISBN 9780819570871.
- ^ "Top budget Jap film". Variety. April 14, 1954. p. 14.
- ^ Sharp, Jasper (May 7, 2015). "Still crazy-good after 60 years: Seven Samurai". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on October 24, 2021. Retrieved February 16, 2015.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Kinemawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Sharp, Jasper (May 20, 2020). "Seven Samurai: The rocky road to classic status of Akira Kurosawa's action masterpiece". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on October 24, 2021. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
- ^ "Top 100 Movies Of All Time". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Archived from the original on August 18, 2015. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
- ^ "Critics' top 100". bfi.org.uk. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on January 9, 2020. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
- ^ "Sight & Sound 1992 Critics poll". listal.com. Archived from the original on June 4, 2021. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
- ^ "Sight & Sound 2002 Critics' Greatest Films poll". listal.com. Archived from the original on June 3, 2021. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
bbcwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Desser, David (November 1998). "Reviewed Work: The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Richie". The Journal of Asian Studies. 57 (4): 1173. doi:10.2307/2659350. JSTOR 2659350. S2CID 159855562.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).