Seven Samurai

Seven Samurai (Japanese: 七人の侍, Hepburn: Shichinin no Samurai) is a 1954 Japanese epic jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Starring Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima and Yukiko Shimazaki, it tells the story of a village of peasants who hire seven samurai to help defend their village from bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops. Influential in world cinema, Seven Samurai is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. Kurosawa and Hashimoto researched the Edo period for stories to adapt and came across an account of samurai defending peasants from bandits. Together with Oguni, the screenwriters spent over six weeks writing the script and creating detailed plans for each of the film's characters. Produced by Toho, the film spent three months in pre-production casting and location scouting. Filming began on May 27, 1953 and took place on set at Toho Studios, and on location in Shizuoka and Kanagawa Prefectures. Mid-way through production, the film ran out of money. Toho eventually funded Samurai to a total of ¥210 million, making it the most expensive Japanese film made at the time. For the film's final battle, Kurosawa innovated the use of a multi-camera setup and telephoto lenses to adjust audience perception. Filming wrapped in 1954 after 148 working days. Seven Samurai was released in Japan on April 26, 1954, with a runtime of 207 minutes. The film was recut before entering the Venice Film Festival. At Venice, Kurosawa won the Silver Lion for direction, and the film was distributed in the United States by Columbia Pictures in November 1956, where it was recut again. The film grossed ¥290 million in ticket sales in Japan making it the highest-grossing film of that year, though due to...