Review: Seven Samurai (New 4K Remastered Edition)

This is the ‘The Wild Bunch’ of the Warring States period

Akira Kurosawa’s timeless masterpiece ‘Seven Samurai’ is reborn in a “New 4K Remastered Edition.” The story follows samurai hired to protect villagers from bandit raids. Though the film opens with the caption “Sengoku Period,” note that its setting is not the Warring States era itself, but the period after Hideyoshi’s unification of Japan. The portrayal of these “men left behind by the times” resonates with the characters in Peckinpah’s classic Western, The Wild Bunch.

Released October 17, 2025 (Friday) at the “10 AM Film Festival 15”

■Synopsis

Late Sengoku period. Fed up with repeated raids by bandits, peasants in a mountain village decide to hire samurai to fight back. The bandits will strike next immediately after the wheat harvest. They must hire skilled samurai from town before then. But the only payment these poor farmers can offer is a bellyful of white rice.

The farmers meet a middle-aged samurai named Kanbee Shimada and secure his promise to help the village. Hearing about the village’s situation, Kanbee states they need at least seven samurai. But only five gather by the wheat harvest deadline. Joining them are Katsushiro, who admires Kanbee, and Kikuchiyo, a mysterious young man dressed as a samurai, making seven.

Upon arriving at the village, the samurai gather the peasants and begin training. Kanbee devises a plan to fortify the village for defense, and work begins immediately after the wheat harvest. The bandits don’t come. Perhaps they truly wouldn’t come. Just as this thought crossed their minds, the bandits arrived…

■ Impressions & Review

Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Seven Samurai, received a “4K Remastered Edition” in 2016, which became the standard for subsequent screenings. This time, a newly remastered “New 4K Remastered Edition” was released, and I believe this will now be the standard screening material.

However, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what exactly is new between the old and new versions. When the original 4K version was released, the picture and sound quality were dramatically improved, and that impact was simply too great.

This story is pure fiction, but it is set in the year 1586 (Tenshō 14). A family tree for Kikuchiyo appears in the film, indicating he was born in Tenshō 2 and is thirteen years old. Since ages were counted using the traditional Japanese system at the time, this confirms the story’s setting is twelve years after Tenshō 2.

The opening credits display the subtitle “Warring States Period.” However, according to Japanese historical timelines, Tenshō 14 falls within the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Nobunaga had already died, and Hideyoshi ruled the realm. Precisely this year, Ieyasu traveled to Osaka Castle to pledge allegiance to Hideyoshi, who had just received a new surname from the Emperor, becoming Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The Sengoku period, where samurai could become lords of a castle and territory through their own wit, skill, and strength, had ended.

The rogue warriors and samurai appearing in this film are “men out of time” who cannot change their ways of living from the chaotic era, even though the Sengoku period has ended. The rogue warriors attacking peasant villages and the samurai sacrificing their lives to defend them appear diametrically opposed. Yet both groups are men unable to adapt to changing times, unable to alter their way of life. Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo, who yearn to be samurai while remaining oblivious to the era’s shift, might be seen as young men sharing a common thread with the Shinsengumi of the Bakumatsu period.

Men bewildered by the changing times, yet martyring themselves to their way of life. Similar men appear in Sam Peckinpah’s Western, The Wild Bunch (1969). While The Wild Bunch’s use of slow-motion photography and its climactic deathmatch were influenced by Kurosawa films, the commonalities between the two films extend far beyond such surface similarities.

TOHO Cinemas Nihonbashi (Screen 1)
Distributed by: TOHO
1954 | 3 hours 27 minutes | Japan | Monochrome | Standard
Official Website: https://7samurai.asa10eiga.jp/
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047478/

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