Of course, no discussion of Akira Kurosawa would be complete without a mention of Kurosawa’s (arguably) best and (certainly) best-known film: The Seven Samurai. There are Kurosawa films I’d rather watch again. But there’s no question that Seven Samurai is a unique, exciting, and ultimately devastatingly sad film.

I have to admit when I first watched Seven Samurai (I must have been, well, seven years old), I found it boring. And all of his films require the patience to sit through eighteen minutes of opening credits while creaky orchestral music plays. But I expected to see a bunch of samurai cutting each other the heck up; I had been spoiled by fast-paced modern movie swordfights (like that nonsense in the Star Wars prequels) that are the corrupt descendants of films like this. Seven Samurai isn’t about action and isn’t even, ultimately, about samurai; it’s about loneliness, and people’s rejection of and failure to understand each other.

Above: The bandit chieftain

A word on the history of samurai is in order. What we think of as basic samurai stuff–the fancy swordfighting and the code of honor–is the product of the relative peace following the establishment of the strong Tokugawa government. When samurai didn’t fight in huge battles anymore, they honed their dueling skills and aesthetics, well, just to feel important. But many, ronin, found themselves out of a job and were reduced to the status of beggars–in spite of being able to cut down hundreds of ninja with their martial prowess.

Seven Samurai has another simple premise: a poor village is beset by bandits. They hire, well, seven samurai to protect them, promising them a cup of rice a day. Things are so bad that this sounds like a good deal to these fearsome, educated warriors, and they–led by Kanbei (Takashi Shimura), and with a notable turn by Toshirou Mifune as Kikuchiyo–join the villagers in months of brutal siege warfare.

Above: Kikuchiyo, a “samurai” with a secret

It should come as no surprise (minor spoiler) that they eventually defeat the bandits. At the end of the film (major spoiler hereon, stop reading if you haven’t seen it and go see it), the villagers resume their daily life. One young samurai has become enamored with a village girl, who now coldly turns away from him. The camaraderie that existed between these two social classes under the threat of death has vanished. Looking at the swords planted in the graves of his fallen comrades, Kanbei reflects “the villagers have won again,” and he and the other survivors silently walk away.

Kurosawa once said: “All my life, I have debated two questions. Why can’t people be happier? And, why can’t they be happier together?” These questions, that betray his heartfelt sorrow on behalf of the human race, are never answered. When safe from immediate peril, people revert to self-satisfied mediocrity, refusing to learn anything. While I earlier said that Ran represents Kurosawa’s final apocalyptic vision, perhaps after all Seven Samurai, with its comparative realism, is the more moving film.