Seven Samurai

Photo Courtesy Tamamushi



When one thinks of entertainment in Japan, most immediately think of the glamorous bright lights of downtown Tokyo or the booming business of anime and manga. I however would like to touch upon the classics of Japanese entertainment. In the west, we have our western classics with cowboys and indians. However, because of Japans original and old past, their so called “cowboys” of old are the ancient samurai. These movies used to be popular in Japan among all ages when anime was still in its infancy. Some of the most popular samurai movies even won international acclaim. The movie I would like to delve deeper into is called Seven Samurai. While I am nowhere close to being an experienced viewer of the samurai classics, I’ve heard that this movie used to be the equivalent of a good John Wayne back home.
In fact, if this movie were dissected into only its elemental parts of plot and characters, it is almost exactly the same as certain cowboy movies like Tombstone. The plot goes something like this. A village/town falls helpless and victim to the enemy. The heroes come in and save the people by killing off the bad guys. While every good movie including Seven Samurai has the good and bad guys along with a meandering love story, it is not these similarities that I am so much interested in. I would like to answer questions like what makes this Japanese movie unique to the culture of Japan?
The main point that sticks out in my mind is the underlying reason for why most of the samurai enlisted to help the poor farmers. It was self evident that the samurai fought not to do it for the fame or for the money but because it was honorable and just. This can be seen when the first samurai, Kambei decides to fight after seeing the terrible state of the farmers in hunger and shame. Thus it is enforced in the viewers mind the lesson that it is more important to do what is right than what one might gain in material fortune.
The second interesting point that this movie brings up is respect. Throughout the movie, there is an obvious hierarchy between the samurai, farmers and women. In some parts, the samurai kick around the farmers like stray dogs in the street. In addition, great respect is shown when talking to elders such as the old man that leads the village. Today in Japan, while there is still a level of respect shown to elders (for instance polite form of speaking versus plain form), this level of respect is slowly declining as new generations are born. The book I am currently reading titled, “As I see it” by Konosuke Matsushita touches on this very point. Matsushita states, “I am saddened by the lessening of respect as the years go by.”
Lastly, one cannot ignore the costume and props that are unique to Japan. Everything from the armor and swords down to the war flag that was made by Kikuchiyo is unique to Japanese culture of the 16th century. I once heard that the reason for flags to be worn in times of war were so that the generals commanding the war would be able to see those that were fighting especially well or committing acts of heroism. Although neither flag nor armor were used during fighting in the movie, they both had their key roles in the storyline.
After viewing some important distinctions that help keep movies like Seven Samurai unique to classical Japanese entertainment compared to western classics, we find that important elements are always present. These can be materialistic like the weapons and clothing or present only in actions and relations among characters like honor and respect.




Photo Courtesy benkyoshin.blogspot.com