Review of Seven Samurai (1954) by Kkl10 A — 16 Apr 2015
Arguably Akira Kurosawa's most famous film (the guy's made so many it's hard to pick just one), this epic film... really didn't need to be so epic. It's still good, but the runtime of 3.5 hours doesn't feel all that justified.
The first 2 hours of this film are nothing but buildup. Nothing wrong with doing some build up, but these first two hours are a little slow despite Kurosawa's technical wizardry firing on all cylinders. With this runtime, we should get to know all of our samurai very well, but we don't. Well, we get some insight into a few of them. Takashia Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, and Isao Kimura are really the only three that get any character development.
While the beginning of the film drags it down, the last hour, which is almost all good ol'-fashioned samurai violence is mind-numbingly jaw-dropping. Every fight scene is just amazing to watch. The camera movements in these scenes alone are truly impressive. You don't get lost in the action and you can clearly tell if it's a samurai or a bandit getting killed. This comes close to making up for the first two hours, but not entirely. It's still a very good movie, but it really didn't need to be as long as it is.
This review of Seven Samurai (1954) was written by Kkl10 A on 16 Apr 2015.
Seven Samurai has generally received very positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
