Art of Action: Seven Samurai

Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is immensely influential and arguably the defining work of Japanese cinema. Screening from a new 4K restoration.

When 16th-century farmers whose village is repeatedly attacked by merciless bandits ask an elderly, masterless samurai (Takashi Shimura) for help, offering nothing but food in return, he hesitantly agrees and assembles a band of warriors to defend and train the villagers.

Boasting terrific performances, (with Shimura and Toshiro Mifune – as a peasant masquerading as a samurai – particularly memorable), superb camerawork, and expertly mounted battle sequences, Seven Samurai is undoubtedly one of the greatest action films ever made.

Includes a 5-minute intermission.

"Not only a great film in its own right, but the source of a genre that would flow through the rest of the century." - Roger Ebert