"When I was as old as you, I also thought about fighting and making meritorious deeds with my ability, and then becoming the king of a city, but I thought that my hair was white and gray. At that time, you had lost your parents and you were all alone." - Akira Kurosawa " Seven Samurai
foreword
In 1954, the film "Seven Samurai" was released in Japan. It mainly tells the story of the peasants in poor mountain villages who hired seven samurai to fight 40 bandits in order to defend their homes during the Warring States Period in Japan. The whole film is 3 and a half hours long, but the plot is full of ups and downs, which is exciting; the fighting scenes are grand and realistic, the continuous fierce battles of gun horses rushing and fighting in the quagmire are tense and exciting; In terms of application, it is used as a textbook for countless film academies; director Akira Kurosawa combines Japan's heavy samurai culture with Western entertainment and action film techniques, making business and art an unprecedented fit, reflecting on human thinking and compassion in troubled times. Akira Kurosawa's unique spiritual core.
There are many appreciations about "Seven Samurai" from a movie perspective. Today, we will reveal the secret from the behind-the-scenes perspective of the movie, why it can be regarded as the number one movie in Japan.
planning
Akira Kurosawa originally wanted to make an entertaining action film about a day in the life of a samurai. But after a lot of research, he felt that there was not enough factual basis for the filming. Later, the producer discovered through historical research that samurai during the "Warring States" period in Japanese history often volunteered to stay overnight in the countryside in exchange for room and board. Akira Kurosawa also found an anecdote about a village hiring samurai to protect them, and decided to adopt the idea. Akira Kurosawa has written a complete dossier for each character about what they wear, their favorite foods, their past histories, their speaking habits, their reactions to battles and whatever he can think of All details.
After months of research, the six samurai in the film are based on historical samurai. For example, Kuzo is based on Miyamoto Musashi, one of the most famous samurai ever in Japan. And Kikuchiyo has no historical basis, and the character created by art, Toshiro Mifune is also allowed to improvise in the performance. Kurosawa even designed a register for all 101 residents of the village, creating a family tree to help the extras establish their characters and relationships with each other. No other Japanese director has done this before.
The background of the movie story is the Warring States period of Japan, but the specific setting is in 1586. Because it is learned in the clip of snatching the scroll that the real Kikuchiyo was born in the second year of the Tensho era (1574), and she is now 13 years old (unlike in the West, Japanese tradition considers a child to be "one year old" at birth) . The first draft, written by Shinobu Hashimoto, was written "freely" at Kurosawa's instructions and was 500 pages long.
shoot
Akira Kurosawa refused to shoot the mountain village in the Toho studio, and made the full set in Takata on the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka. Although Toho Films had protested the increased production costs, Kurosawa insisted that "the quality of the set affects the quality of the actors' performance... So I made the set exactly like the real thing. It limited the shooting, but encouraged it. a sense of reality".
According to screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto, the film originally started with the same group of bandits attacking another village, but Akira Kurosawa decided to cut out the fight because he thought the "humble" opening was the best way to open the film . The opening shot of the final film is after that attack. This is the technique of "if you want to promote first, suppress it", which is often said in art.
According to Yoshio Tsuchiya, when filming the scene where the samurai and the villagers attacked and burned down the bandit's nest, the crew must have a fire truck on standby at the scene. Kurosawa had staff spray gasoline all over the fortress to make sure it would burn completely. When it came time to actually shoot the fight, the fire started to burn faster, burning much hotter than expected, but the actors still had to work hard to get it all done in one go. Kurosawa yells "Go on!" Off-camera, Tsuchiya's Riki has to approach the gates of the fort in an attempt to save his wife. As he did so, the roof collapsed and a blast of hot air badly burned his windpipe. Tsuchiya also noted that by the end of filming, the fire was so large that it burned the grass on the cliff above the set. Kurosawa was clearly so stressed by the ordeal that he cried as firefighters put out the blaze.
In another scene where the mill was burnt by bandits, workers covered the mill with fabric, and when the wet cloth ignited, only smoke, not flames, was produced. In the end, to get all the footage Kurosawa needed, the mill was rebuilt and burned down 3 times.
The film's final battle, originally scheduled for late summer, was filmed in near-freezing temperatures in February due to an extended filming cycle. Shortly before filming began, it was snowing heavily and the crew had to water the set to melt the snow. Combined with the fact that the script plans to film the fight in a dramatic downpour, that means the actors are working in deep, thick mud. Because of the harsh winter, the mud often froze, leaving the actors wearing sandals from the period and freezing as they tried to complete the action. Toshiro Mifune later recalled that he had never been so cold in his life. Akira Kurosawa himself, who was standing in the mud with the actors, was apparently so cold that his toenails began to fall off.
Overlord
In addition to the strict requirements for shooting scenes, Akira Kurosawa also has very high requirements for actors.
For Shino and Katsushiro's love scene, Akira Kurosawa wanted to achieve the "sparkling" effect in Shino's eyes. To do this, he used tilted mirrors on the ground to reflect light onto her face. Due to the constant reshoots, Keiko Tsushima's eyes, who played Shino, were eventually injured by overexposure to the harsh light.
Seiji Miyaguchi originally wanted to turn down the role of Kuzang because he had never learned any swordsmanship before. Kurosawa convinced him that the sword scene would be made through camera angles and editing, and Miyaguchi eventually agreed to participate. Shortly before filming, he took a two-day "crash course" in swordsmanship, and by the end, when the filming actually started, he was so exhausted he could barely move. But the final effect, in the movie, he is a master of swordsmanship with high martial arts.
In order to play the role of Kikuchiyo well, Toshiro Mifune specially went to watch movies of wild lions to find inspiration for the role. Because the production pressure was too great, Toshiro Mifune even threatened Kurosawa with a gun. The two are also teachers and friends, and they have collaborated on many classic films, and they have also started their golden age.
The film ended up more than quadrupling its budget, stretching its production time to 148 days, and there were even rumors that Toho Studios nearly went bankrupt for filming Seven Samurai. But in fact, in 1954, the studio released a total of 68 feature films that year, the most successful of which were Seven Samurai, Samurai I: Miyamoto Musashi and Godzilla. All three films were the most expensive Japanese films at the time and were huge financial risks for Toho. However, there is little evidence that Toho as a company was ever at risk of bankruptcy. To this day, Toho remains the industry leader in Japanese films.
Supplements
1. Kanbei shaved his head and pretended to be a monk to rescue a child kidnapped by robbers.
Shangquan Nobugang, whose real name was Musashi Gengoro, later became a samurai and changed his name to Shangquan Xiugang. After the War of Shinshu, he retired to concentrate on studying swordsmanship. Created a well-known genre of Japanese swordsmanship, the Shinyinyu, and together with Tsukahara Buchuan, he was honored as the "Juggernaut" by later generations, and he never failed in his life. And Kanbei said at the end, "This time it's a defeat, it's the farmers who won, not us", which is thought-provoking.
2. When Katsushiro met Shino for the first time, she told him she was a boy (only nodding, she didn't let her voice be heard), and in the ensuing tear, Katsushiro accidentally touched her room . Only then did he realize it was actually a girl, and took a step back.
In the grand visuals and cinematic value of Seven Samurai, this scene is rarely mentioned. However, it may be more groundbreaking than anything else. The movie was made in 1954, and it's unthinkable on a Hollywood or Japanese screen for a man to actually touch a woman's rut (even though the script says it happened by accident). It was an era when there wasn't even a bedroom scene, and there were usually two separate beds instead of a large adult bed.
2. When some villagers threw their spears away from others and just wanted to protect their own homes, Kanbei ordered them to return to their positions. When they disobeyed, he drew his sword and charged at them, scaring them back into place. However, instead of killing anyone, he retracted his sword and talked about how they had to stick together in time of war.
While this is not a mistake in itself, it still violates the samurai code: "As soon as the sword is drawn, blood must be shed". This could be explained by Kanbei's experienced rational behavior, rather than the strict adherence to the rules witnessed in the film. Instead of killing someone just because of the code, he used it as an opportunity to tell the villagers how to behave in war.
3. At the end of the film, in order to protect the villagers, four samurai were killed in battle, and only three samurai, Kanbei, Shichiroji, and Katsushiro were left standing under the high tomb, looking back at the villagers happily planting rice in the field. , singing and dancing, as if the battle had never happened.
Of the seven samurai, not a single one of them was defeated by a bandit in swordsmanship, archery or spear. The four samurai killed in the film were all shot with muskets. The only one of the seven to fight back with a musket is Kikuchiyo, who isn't technically a samurai and doesn't kill anyone with a gun. Two muskets were seized from the bandits, but were not used in the ensuing fierce battle.
5. The film takes place during the Warring States period, shortly before the peasant class became illegal to own weapons and the samurai class was allowed to possess two swords. It was also during this period that Toyotomi Hideyoshi became the ruler of Japan and expelled Western missionaries from Japan in response to growing influence. As the skirmishes between the warlords had ended, many samurai lost their status, many of them became ronin or mercenary, the lowest level of samurai, and even became bandits.
6. This is Kurosawa's first samurai movie since Rashomon (1950). 207 minutes is also the longest picture of Akira Kurosawa's career. Akira Kurosawa's ancestors were samurai, about 100 years before he made this film. The film "Seven Samurai" uses real samurai armor, and the weapons are real swords and guns. For example, the sword that Kikuchiyo carries is a significantly larger samurai sword, which is called a tachi.
6. The creative freedom provided by Toho Studio allowed Kurosawa to use a telephoto lens, which was rare in 1954. For several scenes, especially climactic battles, Kurosawa knew there were some moves he could only capture once. So, to maximize coverage of the action, he set up three different cameras at different points on the village set, then edited the footage together to create a dynamic sequence of events. This, combined with a telephoto lens that allowed the camera to zoom in on the action, created a revolutionary style of filmmaking that Kurosawa continued to use throughout his career.
influence
The film won the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1954, was nominated for 2 Oscars at the 29th Academy Awards, ranked first in the 100 Japanese Films selected by Japan's "Cinematic Journal", and ranked first in the BBC's Top 100 Foreign Language Films in 2018. The authoritative film website IMDb TOP250 No. 20 (Japanese film first). It is no exaggeration to say that "Seven Samurai" is the greatest movie in the history of Japanese cinema, bar none.
Compared with awards, Akira Kurosawa is an idol worshipped by countless directors in later generations, such as: Francis Ford Coppola ("The Godfather" series), Sergio Leon ("Once Upon a Time in America"), George Lu Cass ("Star Wars" series), Steven Spielberg ("Schindler's List"), Martin Scorsese ("The Wolf of Wall Street"), Zhang Yimou ("Heroes") and many more.
If "The Godfather" is a must-see movie for men in life, then "Seven Samurai" is a classic movie that cannot be missed.
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