Set-up
Seven Samurai is a classic Japanese martial arts movie written and directed by Japan's most famous movie maker, Akira Kurosawa. More than 50 years after its release, movie buffs worldwide still regard Kurosawa's masterpiece as one of the greatest films ever made. Seven Samurai remains Japan's highest-grossing film. Its remastered DVD version has brought the movie to contemporary audiences. The effects of Kurosawa's film on subsequent movies have been considerable. Just six years after its release, Hollywood remade Seven Samurai as a Western, The Magnificent Seven, which became a classic in its own right. Plans are now underway for another remake, this time involving a group of present-day paramilitary mercenaries defending a farming village in Thailand. Yet no modern remake with its high-tech CGI action sequences can recreate the original impact of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, which was filmed without a single computer or special effect.
Plot
A gang of vicious bandits is planning a raid on an isolated farming village. Learning of the plan, the villagers decide to hire some samurai warriors from a nearby city to help them defend their village. Eventually, Kambei, his pupil Katsushiro and five more samurai agree to help the villagers. The samurai build fortifications around the village and teach the villagers how to fight. When the gang of bandits finally emerges out of the mist one morning, the seven samurai are waiting for them.
The Way of the Warrior
From the 12th century until 1867, Japan was ruled by warlords called shogun. As the noblemen fought each other constantly for power and riches, the country was torn apart by war. The samurai were soldiers from aristocratic Japanese families who fought in the army of their local daimyo, or lord. All samurai took an oath of loyalty to their fellow soldiers and their master. The samurai could carry two swords and had the right to kill any commoner who stood against them. Their dominance came to an end in the 1860s when centralised rule was restored to the emperor. Yet the legend of the samurai would live on.