Seven Samurai - D 8 KUR
Criterion/Voyager (1954)
Action, Drama, War
In Collection
#577
0*
Seen ItYes
5035673005019
207 mins Japan / Japanese
DVD  Region 2   UR (Unrated)
Yoshio Inaba Gorobei Katayama
Toshirô Mifune Kikuchiyo
Takashi Shimura Kambei Shimada
Keiko Tsushima Shino
Daisuke Katô Shichiroji
Seiji Miyaguchi Kyuzo
Minoru Chiaki Heihachi Hayashida
Isao Kimura Katsushiro Okamoto
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Producer Sojiro Motoki
Writer Akira Kurosawa
Shinobu Hashimoto
Cinematography Asakazu Nakai
Musician Fumio Hayasaka

During the warring states period in Japan a village of poor farmers is repeatedly attacked by a gang of forty bandits. A young villager, Rikichi (Yoshio Tsuchiya), suggests they hire someone to fight the bandits which means hiring samurai. The villagers don’t trust samurai as their rapacious appetites can make them as bad as the bandits and because they have little with which to pay them. An elder suggests they find samurai who are hungry by which he means meaning down on their luck. At first their search is unsuccessful but eventually they find Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura) an experienced but aging and masterless samurai or “ronin.” He gathers up five other ronin and a pretender, Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune), who agree to work for the village in return for three meals a day. At first neither group trusts the other but Kikuchiyo, himself a farmer, is able to make the samurai understand the pressures facing the farmers. Eventually all realize that each has an honest need to survive and they work together first to fortify the village and then to destroy the bandits.
Edition Details
Release Date 22/11/1999
Packaging Snap Case
Screen Ratio Fullscreen (4:3)
Subtitles Danish; English; Finnish; Norwegian; Swedish
Audio Tracks Dolby Digital Mono [Japanese]
Layers Single Side, Dual Layer
No. of Disks/Tapes 3
Personal Details
Links Availability

Features
Disc 01 Leaflet with film notes and director's biography