Seven Samurai: Warriors and Society - Movie Review Example

 Seven Samurai: Warriors and Society Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai depicts the foremost epic themes widely recognized by storytellers in Western societies since the ancient times—heroism, warfare, and warriors. Seven Samurai is original, despite its adaptation of Western themes, depicting the struggles of a war-ravaged 16th-century Japan, when warlords governed the nation, bringing about lawlessness and chaos once their administration ended (Santas 34). Immediately afterward bandits attacked and pillaged villages, forcibly took the harvests of farmers, sexually violated women, and ravaged communities. The village dwellers had only one hope left—they could employ jobless, and usually famished samurai to defend them (Santas 34-35). Hence, the tale of the samurai that arose from these specific situations was not that of a samurai serving and protecting his warlord, but of the protector and champion of the weak and the poor. This essay analyzes the themes of warriors and society, and the notion of honor in the film Seven Samurai. Seven Samurai: Analysis of the Themes The ‘ronin’, as shown in the film, is a wandering free swordsman who, due to sympathy and kindheartedness, or the sheer need to eat, pledges to defend the village, help it triumph, and then again detaching himself from it. He is without a master and the villagers have hired him for a short time. With the conclusion of his mission, he is once more alone and free to wander all over the countryside, smarter and shrewder possibly and free, but indolent and adrift. His sole fulfillment appears to be rooted in finishing the mission. He believes that the overthrow of the enemies is just a temporary victory and that evil is recurring and destined to come back—and wrestled and beaten again to guarantee survival (Donovan 35). By expertly combining technical and philosophical components, the film attains a seamless artistry, showing harmony of action, portrayal of both the group and the person, and a notion of a hero and a warrior who attains a legendary reputation as the protector of the villagers. Seven Samurai attains its harmony of plot due to the strength of its goal, which a group of farmers show when they made a decision to hire jobless, starving warriors to back them up in their effort to rescue the village from marauders. Basically, the film is a heroic and mythical tale of warfare, triumph, and failure; a fight between good and evil; and a narrative of man’s kindness and cruelty. The film’s objective is based on the notion of the fight between good and evil and of the need to overcome evil in any way possible to prevent death or guarantee continued existence. Man as a group and as a person is driven into a dishonorable, strange world, where uncertainty and danger dominate and evil, manifested through violence, plunder, and indecency, endangers survival every time. Chaos is part of humankind. Social order occurs once humanity gets out of chaos. Yet, this social order is intimidated or endangered continuously by evil, troublesome, and disrupting elements usually outside the control of that social order. The peaceful relationship of man with nature is disturbed as well by these elements. Human knowledge and gallantry can counteract these disruptive elements and rescue humankind, but even heroic warrior can be crushed and overwhelmed by disruptive forces (Donovan 36-37). Nevertheless, heroic warriors, such as those in the Seven Samurai, are the greatest way humanity can give in its attempts to prevent catastrophe and overcome evil. In this film, the heroic warrior is espoused by the samurai. Basically, the film is a re-creation of the contemporary action hero, whose aggressive and dangerous behavior usually denies him of the chance to pursue self-awareness and self-assessment. The core of the power, essence, and intricacy of the Seven Samurai is basically in the relationship or bond between the samurai and the people they defend. Indeed, this relationship is tensed and uneasy as a whole. The defended, as shown in the film, are fearful, if not resentful, of their defenders. The village people see themselves bullied and harassed by the outlaws, but they cannot be certain that the seven samurai who have agreed to defend them are not the same as the bandits who tormented them. The wives and daughters of the farmers are hidden when the seven samurai appear. The villagers cannot be certain the seven warriors would not make an attempt to manipulate and prey on them. When Kambei, the head of the seven samurai, discovers this, he comments with silent disappointment that in spite of everything they are trying to do for the villagers—not just protecting them but doing it for only three meals a day as payment—at least the dignity and honor of the seven ‘ronin’ could be reconsidered. At this stage, the viewers are certainly feeling the same. They are obviously thinking if the villagers deserve to be defended at all. Nevertheless, eventually, a more complicated social relationship between samurai and villagers is shown and Kurosawa rises above the established limitations of this action genre to create a far-reaching, powerful social expression of Japan’s honored history and culture. Kurosawa, a samurai descendant, makes use of the Mifune figure, the rough, mad Kikuchyo, to retell the long abuse and mistreatment of the peasants and samurai (Donovan 38-39). The defining moment arrives when Kikuchyo finds out a stack of timeworn samurai weapons kept secret by the villagers. However, most probably, according to the other samurai, those are the weapons of samurai the village people had slaughtered and stole from the past. In fact, the film shows, those villagers can be disloyal, dishonest, and cunning. Once more, the dilemma of how deserving these villagers are of protection arises. Yet, Kikuchyo angrily responds, reprimanding his peers of the involvement of the samurai in the oppression and injustice peasants and villagers have endured for centuries (Donovan 39): What do you think farmers are? Saints? They are the most cunning and untrustworthy animals on earth. If you ask them for rice, they’ll say they have none. But they have. They have everything. Look in their rafters, dig in the ground, you’ll find it. Rice in jars. Salt. Beans. Sake. Look in the mountains, hidden farms everywhere. And yet they pretend to be oppressed. They are full of lies. When they smell a battle they make themselves bamboo spears. And then they hunt. But they hunt the wounded and the defeated. Farmers are miserly, craven, mean, stupid, and murderous beasts… But then, who made animals out of them? You. You did—you samurai. All of you damned samurai. Each time you fight you burn villages, you destroy the fields, you take away the food, you seduce the women and enslave the men. And kill them if they resist. The statement is a brief, but powerful, reinterpretation of the legend Japanese culture had created around the samurai. The film reveals that history has verified that the epic, moral samurai, the men who strongly upheld their own unbreakable standards of honor, were to a great extent modern samurai, and possibly more of a myth, folk tale, and legend than reality. The code of the moral swordsman had been embedded into the Japanese mind when the civil wars of the feudal period had concluded and the samurai became honored elites (Donovan 39). Conclusion The film Seven Samurai depicts the themes warriors and society, and notions of honor. Specifically, it shows the relationship between the samurai and the villagers or peasants, as well as the evolving concept of honor linked to the samurai. The very first samurai were merely employed soldiers for warlords. In truth, they started out as mercenaries and hoodlums, battling and murdering for the biggest reward. The very first samurai code could have been more similar to the ‘survival of the fittest’ rule, which states that do whatever it takes to survive, live, and emerge victorious. Works Cited Donovan, Barna. The Asian Influence on Hollywood Action Films. New York: McFarland, 2008. Print. Santas, Constantine. The Epic in Film: From Myth to Blockbuster. UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Print. Read More