Seven Samurai Themes

Seven Samurai, directed and co-written by Akira Kurosawa is a grand tale and a pioneer film for its genre. The story takes place in 16th century Japan and focuses on a rag tag group of master less samurai known as 'Ronin' who ultimately come together to come to the aid of a poor farming village under the attack of plundering bandits. The film follows the farmers needing to find samurai who are willing to work for three meals of rice a day. They come across an elder samurai who accepts their offer and goes to recruit six other members to help the village. As the film progresses, epic battles are fought between both groups, the samurai, the bandits, and the villagers all play integral roles as the film spirals towards a one last epic showdown. Seven samurai goes hand in hand with one of the main themes in the course, which is Samurai. Apart from the obvious title, the film is set in 16th century japan and shows the life of samurai in a time they are not needed. Seven Samurai is a film ahead of its time. One thing it does extremely well is shows the morally gray aspect of times of survival. The film supposedly gives us two sets of characters, the good and the bad. The bandits are shown as the evil of the film when they are first introduced. They ransack and loot the poor farmers, who are

'God'zilla, a monster so giant, so devastating, and so powerful that man is powerless to stop it. Honda shows how nuclear weapons, a man made creation with the potential to destroy the world awakens an even greater threat. A threat humanity cannot control with a push of a button. Godzilla is in someway portrayed as a wrath of god, a force of nature brought upon by the blasphemies of nuclear weapons. The theme of nature vs man is very prevalent in this film and is grounded within the idea of a power greater then humanity. A natural power, that ultimately is defeated by a new man made created