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The Seven Samurai, Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Toho, April 26, 1954 (Japan)
Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji
Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Daisuke Katô, Isao Kimura, Kamatari
Fujiwara, Yoshio Kosugi, Bokuzen Hidari, Keiko Tsushima, and Kokuten
Kodo
That such an epic could be made within the constraints of the technology of the times is a marvel. So too is the journey into the depths of dignity. Without dignity, all else is a house of cards.
Amidst this desperate battleground, wholesome and demonic passions leak into the tombs of broken hearts. For love—forever fragile—is helpless. Born in the soft embrace of dandelion-filled fields of discovery, love cannot escape the divisiveness of its surroundings and so it is scorched by its own hot flames. Within the bloody fields of death, the destiny of lovers is not offered a free pass. The universe just keeps on winning, fending off all comers, despite man’s desperate and feeble attempt to stop time.
Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura): But, time flies.
Before your dream materializes you get gray hair.
By that time,
your parents and friends are dead and gone.
The last men standing are keeper of the secrets and spirits. They are the ones who bare the responsibility of the inheritance, trusted with the memories, the smiles of the departed, the sound of their laughter, their touch. The memory of their fight.
The story of their unbreakable courage and undying dignity.
-G
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