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    Seven Samurai

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    I know you look at the running time of “Seven Samurai” and you feel intimidated. 207 minutes?! What is this? Some kind of epic with complex characters, gripping action and a wide range of emotion, complete with a message that will shake you to your core?! Well, yeah actually, it is! I enjoyed the film from the beginning despite feeling surprised that it wasn't the action-packed prolonged battle that I thought it was going to be. Until the ending where it delivers everything the critics and reviews promised. By the time it ended, I was blown away.

    Set in Japan, 1586, a small village that their days are numbered. As soon as their crops ripen, the horde of bandits that has been roaming the countryside plans on stealing everything they’ve harvested. Knowing that this will mean a slow, painful death by starvation, they decide to fight back. With no money to spare, they use their last grains of rice to hire seven poor, hungry and desperate ronin (masterless samurai) to help.

    The film is split into two parts with an interlude in the middle. The beginning of the picture follows the villagers tasked with traveling to the big city to find samurai. The second half is dedicated to the villagers building defenses and preparing themselves for the big battle. At first, I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a big climax. Much of the running time is spent developing the characters and immersing you in the plight of these people. You understand how truly dire the situation is, who the people involved are, and why this is going to be a truly epic film. There are a lot of characters to follow. You have the seven samurai as well as a number of villagers. Thanks to the ample running time, you get to know all of them fairly well. When somebody dies, it’s unexpected, it’s shocking and emotional. You can’t predict who, if anyone, will survive at the end.

    I don’t know about you, but when I think of samurai, I think of noble warriors. I’m thinking of 2003’s “The Last Samurai” who portrayed them as honorable, fearsome and disciplined. The first time I saw “Princess Mononoke”, I thought it was very peculiar to hear of gangs of rogue samurai roaming the countryside and to see them portrayed as villains. This film explains it all. It’s no wonder this picture was remade as “The Magnificent Seven”. It contains many themes that are inherent to westerns, the biggest and most prominent of which is “redemption”. Samurai are supposed to be reverent fighters, but they weren’t. These were the elite, people who had money to get the expensive weapons and elaborate armor. They didn’t fight for the oppressed, the enforced the rule of the rich and the corrupt. The samurai in this film know this. This battle, one that will not bring them riches, fame or glory is a chance for them to redeem themselves, to atone for the sins they have committed in the past and earn win back the title they have abandoned. As such, I found “Seven Samurai” to be very emotional. It’s like reading the newspaper and finding out that your childhood hero was a violent creep that wasn’t worth your admiration. As you surrender yourself to the truth, you learn that they are ashamed of their behavior and have begun a quest to try and redeem themselves. The way this theme is concluded, it’s absolutely devastating. It’s a skyscraper dropped on top of you when you’re already in an emotional state.

    And then, you have the action and combat. This is a grand story with high stakes that’s full of close calls. 40 bandits vs. 7 samurai. You picture an over-the-top climax, the kind of thing that inspired “Kill Bill”. It isn’t. It’s genuinely tense because the battles are staged in a realistic fashion. Our heroes have to rely on their wits as well as their blades if they want to survive this ordeal. They push every single advantage they have to the limit in order to grind down the number of opponents and even out the odds. I like a big, dumb action movie where the hero punches his way out of every problem as much as the next guy, but this is something else, something special. These are human heroes, with faults and dreams. To get out of this deadly situation, they have to be smart. The likable characters and the inherent drama found in the story ensure that "Seven Samurai" is consistently enticing, regardless of whether swords are slashing or not. There’s a lot of layers that will ensure the picture sticks with you after it ends. Not to be overshadowed, the action is riveting; it’s the kind of excitement you seldom find at the cinema.

    I started watching “Seven Samurai” late at night. I only managed to finish the first half before being realizing I was too tired to finish part 2. By the time I got around to finishing the movie, I couldn’t stand the thought of having a less-than-stellar experience so I watched it from the beginning, uninterrupted. Not only did none of the excitement diminish, but I was able to appreciate it so much more by observing the quality of the writing. Just thinking about it makes me want to pop “Seven Samurai” into my DVD player again. (On DVD, October 1, 2016)

    10
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    adamwatchesmovies@  10.10.2016 age: 26-35 2,866 reviews

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