Kurosawa’s peerless action drama overthrew fixed notions of genre in placing the chambara (sword-play) film within a meaningful past and tempering social drama (jidai-geki) with comedy. It translated into the ethos of the Western as The Magnificient Seven. The position of the ronin, defenders of civilised society yet placed outside it, is not dissimilar to that of the Westerner - a humanist existentialism crossing cultural boundaries. However, in contrast to the Western where history is most often a pretext, Kurosawa locates his characters firmly in a specific historical context - the chaotic period of civil wars in the 16th century before the relative peace of the Tokugawa period (1600-1868). Also available on 16mm, LD and VHS.
Credits: Director, Akira Kurosawa ; producer, Sojiro Motoki ; script, Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni ; photography, Asaichi Nakai ; [music, Fumio Hayasaka].
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima, Kamatari Fujiwara.
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How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
F000055
Languages
English
Japanese
Subject category
Foreign language films
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Black and White
Holdings
35mm film; Limited Access Print (Section 2)