The Raid: 1991 film analysis

¶ … Samurai

Shichinin no Samurai," is a 1954 black and white film by Akira Kurosawa.

Many regard "Seven Samurai" as the greatest Japanese film ever made and among the top ten best motion pictures in the history of cinema. Although it is over fifty years old, Kurosawa captures something that is universal and uses the medium in such a way that encourages the audience to view the world in a new light.

The genre of "Seven Samurai" is jidaigeki, which basically translates as a period drama, which in most cases is the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1600 to 1868. These films generally show the lives of the samurai, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants of medieval Japan, and are sometimes referred to as "chambara" movies, due to the slow, drum-heavy, march-type scores that are typical of this genre. Kurosawa's movie is considered responsible for the postwar renaissance of the samurai film, a genre that had all but disappeared in the immediate postwar era of World War II. This was mainly due to the Untied States occupation army's strictures against the espousal of feudal values and the association of this genre with Japanese militarist era. However, Kurosawa basically transformed the genre by changing the main concern with loyalty to lords, as was typical with this genre, to focus on "men of action" facing moral and ethical choices.

Seven Samurai," filmed in linear structure, is set in 16th century Japan, and is the story of a poor farming village that is regularly attacked by bandits, who steal their rice crops at harvest and take their women as well. Before harvest time approaches again, the villagers decide to hire a group of samurai to help defend their homes and crops for the price of lodging and food, a total of seven samurai are enlisted. The first half of the movie depicts how each samurai joins the group, and their journey to the village, where they teach the farmers how to fight and how to secure their village. The last part of the movie shows several skirmishes with the bandits, all of which lead up to the final battle scene.

As Gary Morris points out, this epic deals with "war, honor, courage, and yes, that homo subtext ever present in male bonding movies, punctuated by Toshiro Mifune's enthralling butt-baring performance." The homoerotic undertones "ripple" throughout the film and "add weight to it," such as the youngest samurai's devotion to Kanbei and Kyuzo. Morris writes that Mifune is a "vision of butch bravado," such as when he strips to catch a fish to show-off in front of the other samurai. And during the entire last sequence of the film, he wears an "abbreviated chain mail vest that shows his smooth muscular arms and exposed ass to great advantage."

Kurosawa once said of this film, "I think we ought to have richer foods, richer films. And so I thought I would make this kind of film, entertaining enough to eat as it were." Morris points out that the richness of this film comes from many sources, such as the "dynamic framing, editing, camera movements, authentic historical detail, a tapestry plot that weaves together many strands, and a range of performance styles from mute-stylized to operatically intense." Kurosawa drew on his early training as a painter to create a strong "pictorialism" that is reminiscent of western models, such as director John Ford. This film is distinguished from the average samurai film by the director's "masterful handling of cinematic technique," in which he captures the essence of a scene in a mere few moments with a series of glances rather than dialogue and special effects.

Moreover, Kurosawa creates a moral complexity of good and evil, creating sympathy for both the samurai and the farmers, and although the samurai are portrayed as heroic while the farmers are weak, he "also points out that heroic deeds are not always performed for noble reasons, and that there are different kinds of heroism." Kurosawa creates a "delicate juxtaposition between the samurais' graceful art of combat and the barbaric reality of war."

At the end, Kambei, the leader of this small group of samurai, realizes that the farmers, although weak, are the lucky ones, for they are at one with nature, "participating in the timeless ritual of life, death, and rebirth, symbolized by the communal rice planting," something which the samurai cannot participate. The farmers have roots, a community of family and friends who grow their own food and raise their families, "all of which are intergenerational, cyclical activities," while the samurai are rootless, destined to wander from one battle to the next.