A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
Direction
Kurosawa invented the team-assemble trope. Every blockbuster owes him rent.
Cinematography
Rain-soaked battles, mud gods, and frames so perfect they hurt.
Acting
Mifune's unhinged energy vs. Shimura's exhausted dignity — masterclass.
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Toshirō Mifune
Kikuchiyo
Takashi Shimura
Kambei Shimada
Yoshio Inaba
Gorobei Katayama
Seiji Miyaguchi
Kyuzo
Minoru Chiaki
Heihachi Hayashida
Daisuke Katō
Shichiroji
Isao Kimura
Katsushiro Okamoto
Keiko Tsushima
Shino
Yukiko Shimazaki
Rikichi's Wife
Kamatari Fujiwara
Manzô - Father of Shino
Yoshio Kosugi
Mosuke
Bokuzen Hidari
Yohei
Yoshio Tsuchiya
Rikichi
Kokuten Kōdō
Gisaku, the Old Man
Eijirō Tōno
Kidnapper
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kurosawa's 'farmers win, samurai lose' ending was radical — it flipped the jidaigeki genre's hero worship on its head.
Toshirō Mifune improvised so much that Kurosawa had to use multiple cameras just to catch his chaos.
JP
