Full disclosure: As with most of the films in this collection, I watch them in chunks on a 7” DVD player. I will admit this is not the ideal way of watching classic films – but it’s the only way in my busy schedule to get this done. Feel free to point fingers, make comments behind my back, disregard my feeble attempts at discussion/commentary. I’ll take it. And, of course, with “TSS” running at 3.5 hours in length – this was going to be no exception. Granted, I can tell you straight up that I actually looked FORWARD to watching this as opposed to “Richard III” which I despised from the moment Larry Olivier glared at me from my Mintek.

Here’s, though, where this changed. I LOVED this movie. LOVED IT. The moment I shut off the DVD player an hour in…I couldn’t wait to turn the DVD player back on. Even in chunks, the 3.5 hours played like a 90 minute long film. I was pulled in from the opening scenes to the end of the film and I honestly do not think the film had a miss-step in it (oh, sure, I could have probably done without the love story) but the film is AMAZING.

Story? As I’ve said numerous times in these reviews…the story is a simple one. A small town in Japan has been terrorized by a gang of evil Samurai. You know they’re evil because the head guy has an eye patch. When they decide to ransack a village they had ransacked just a few months prior, they have a change of heart and decide to come back in a few months when the crops will be in. Overheard by a villager the members of the village decide they need to be protected. So they hire 7 Samurai to protect them. Their pay? Food. That’s all the village can give them.

The Seven Samurai (including a youngster – a Samurai wannabe) show up and whip the town into shape. Teach the men to fight, teach the women to hide, flood the fields, abandon the outlaying homes and mill, and thus prepare themselves for battle.

When battle eventually comes (as they all do in these films) some are heroes, some are cowards, some are winners and some are losers. To tell more than this would give away too much of the joy of this film. But I’ll tell you there’s a badass Samurai in this film that, every time he was on screen, I was in cinematic nirvana heaven. He could just SIT THERE and I was entranced. When he returns with a rifle from the enemy – it is a brilliant moment.

There is so much to like in this film that I could go on for days – but I will just mention one thing in particular… Kurosawa had balls, BALLS for setting the climax during a RAIN STORM! Amazing piece of work.

WHAT I LIKED:

Golly, darn near EVERYTHING. Including, though I didn’t mention it above, the amount of HUMOR in the film. It is even quite funny but, hey, stop reading this and see the movie now.

WHAT I DISLIKED:

There were moments where the acting was so over the top I’m surprised it didn’t come back around and smack itself in the head.

I could have done without the love story – it was a tad distracting and ground the film to a halt. But it wasn’t over done and didn’t take up too much of the 3.5 hours.

I realize that it’s probably impossible in a film like this, but it’s another film where all the dialogue and sound was added in post production. Sometimes I found it a bit distracting (like the sound effect of horses hooves was a bit “off”) but these are minor, MINOR quibbles.

BOTTOM LINE:

Said it before, I’ll say it again: SEE THIS MOVIE! NOW!