Seven Samurai

Shichinin no samurai

Rice farmers hire a band of samurai to defend them against marauding bandits in Akira Kurosawa’s influential epic, showing here in a digital 4K restoration.

  • Director

    Akira Kurosawa

  • With

    Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji Miyaguchi

  • Japan 1954. 207min (+ interval)

  • Digital 4K (restoration)

  • Certificate

    PG

  • English subtitles

Strongly influenced by the poetic westerns of John Ford, Kurosawa’s story of farmers recruiting a motley troupe of ronin to help fend off bandits had a huge impact on subsequent westerns and action films – from Hollywood remake The Magnificent Seven to the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone.

Dick Fiddy

Also available on BFI Player