Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai [Shichinin no samurai] (Criterion #2).
1954 Toho Company Ltd. & Janus Films.
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Inaba, Daisuke Kato, Minoru Chiaki, Isao Kimura, Seiju Miyaguchi, Toshiro Mifune
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Available from Amazon (three-disc reissue).

Kurosawa's masterpiece, and one of the greatest movies ever made.

A villager overhears a gang of roving thieves plotting to ransack their town in several months when the barley crop is finally harvested, as the gang has already attacked the village before. After he returns home with the news, his fellow citizens are divided on whether to go down fighting, or surrender their harvest. The village elder proposing hiring samurai to defend the village, which is a troubling proposition, since samurai are not only expensive to enlist, but they also lust after young farm women. This time, they have no choice, and they go off to find "hungry samurai", as the townsfolk have only food to offer. Going to the nearby large city, they meet an aging Kambei (Shimura), who agrees to help the villagers. He then recruits four more samurai, but is persuaded to take along Katsushiro (Kimura), an aristocratic samurai who wants to be Kambei's disciple. Kikuchiyo (Mifune), a clowning would-be samurai, follows the group, despite the fact that no one wanted him. He also triggers a false alarm upon arriving in the village, and then scolds the frightened villagers for running to the samurai for aid after not welcoming them to their town (they had hidden in their homes when they showed up).

Over time, the villagers and the seven samurai slowly come to trust each other, as the town is fortified, and its farmers are trained for battle. After a bandit scout is captured, and he reveals the location of their camp, three samurai and a guide launch a pre-emptive strike. It's a standoff, with many bandits falling, and a samurai, Heihachi (Chiaki) is cut down by musket fire. Unfortunately, Kikuchiyo chooses to abandon his post to steal a musket from the enemy camp, giving the thieves an opportunity to attack and kill many farmers. Gorobei (Inaba), second in command, is killed in the attack.

During the second night of the siege, Kambei decides that the surviving villagers will soon be too exhausted to keep fighting, and tells everyone to prepare for a final, decisive battle. Who will win? And who will survive? Most importantly, will the villagers keep their alliance with the remaining samurai when the fight is over?

Seven Samurai is a very influential film, most notably on John Sturges, who adapted Kurosawa's movie to the American west, replaced samurai with gunslingers, and called it The Magnificent Seven. Roger Corman paid tribute to Seven Samurai with his 1980 sci-fi reworking, Battle Beyond the Stars.

Highly, highly, highly recommended movie.