Film
Action
Drama

Classics: Seven Samurai

What's on

Country

Japan

Year

1954

Language

Japanese, Dutch subtitles

Director

Akira Kurosawa

Duration

207 min

4K restoration of Kurosawa's masterful film epic that tells the story of desperate residents of a 16th-century village who hire seven samurai to protect them from bandits.

This influential action-adventure film had a huge impact on later Westerns and action films. This monumental action-adventure film – starring legendary actors Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura – weaves philosophy and entertainment, subtle human emotions and relentless action into a rich, evocative historical thriller and moral-political fable in one.

Kurosawa's story – itself heavily influenced by the poetic Westerns of John Ford – had a huge impact on later Westerns and action films and was much loved by fellow filmmakers. Peter Jackson was inspired by Kurosawa's dramatic use of rain for the battles in Lord of the Rings. John Sturges copied Seven Samurai for his The Magnificent Seven. Seven Samurai also influenced many other Westerns, notably those of Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) and Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West). Seven Samurai is considered by many filmmakers to be the best film school that cinema has to offer.

The film has a 15-minute intermission.

The Best of Akira Kurosawa

In July we will show five timeless masterpieces by Japanese grandmaster Akira Kurosawa, a pioneer in combining Western storytelling techniques with Japanese stories. This led to groundbreaking films that inspired filmmakers worldwide, from Sergio Leone to George Lucas. We will show three epic samurai films (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Ran), a crime thriller (High and Low) and a human drama (Ikiru).

To films