Seven Samurai | 4K UHD+Blu-ray

Yojimbo springs immediately to mind as the inflection point between samurai films and westerns, but The Seven Samurai may be where that journey really started. Kurosawa’s epic tale of chivalry has all the hallmarks of a classic tale in the way much of traditional chambara film was portrayed.

Rather than being the story of a lone ronin, it’s a narrative more focused on politics and class. Traditionally samurai in these kinds of films were portrayed more as we might think of knights, honorable warriors in service of a king around whom the real power of the story turned. By the end of the 50s, however, the cracks were clearly showing, even if they hadn’t quite burst wide open.

The warriors of Seven Samurai may not be fighting alone, or lacking honor and ideals, but they are masterless and far from polished nobility. It’s no surprise that Hollywood saw this image of downtrodden men of action and found it an easy translation to the gunslingers of Western lore. Over the next two decades Samurai and Western film would become near-inseperably interlinked, Seven Samurai was the first step on that journey.

Special Features (via criterion.com)

• New 4K digital restoration, with the original uncompressed monaural soundtrack and an optional 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film (in the aspect ratio of 1.37:1) and two Blu-rays with the film (in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1) and special features
• Two audio commentaries, one featuring film scholars David Desser, Joan Mellen, Stephen Prince, Tony Rayns, and Donald Richie, and the other Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck
• Making-of documentary, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
• My Life in Cinema (1993), a two-hour conversation between director Akira Kurosawa and filmmaker Nagisa Oshima
• “Seven Samurai”: Origins and Influences, a documentary looking at the samurai traditions and films that helped shape Kurosawa’s masterpiece
• Trailers and teaser
• Gallery of rare posters, behind-the-scenes photos, and production stills
• PLUS: Essays by Kenneth Turan, Peter Cowie, Philip Kemp, Peggy Chiao, Alain Silver, Stuart Galbraith IV, Arthur Penn, and Sidney Lumet, and an interview with actor Toshiro Mifune from 1993