#sevensamurai

I found this film to be very entertaining with a lot of interesting dynamics between people, but more so between groups of people or perspectives. Although I will say, there were two characters in Seven Samurai that I obsessed over during this movie: Kukichiyo and Shino.

Kukichiyo is one of the more dynamic characters in this film. At first he seems like a blockhead always raring for a fight, and while that characterization isn’t wrong, his motivations and perceptions of the world around him are admirable.

The first thing I noticed in the film was the mass victim-mentality of the farmers. They always stuck together and relied on others for protection (the samurai) and advice (the town elder); it was very clear that as a group they believed without a doubt that there was no escaping the power hierarchy they were born into. When thinking about the farmers in this way, it actually makes sense that they would not have tried to fight against the bandits before.

However, Kukichiyo makes a very strong point that this is untrue (in a sense). He barges into the house where the samurai are staying wearing the armor of dead samurai, and they not only become angry at him, but they also wish to turn on the farmers they came to protect.

Kukichiyo calls out the samurai’s sudden disdain for the farmers by saying that they are not just docile weaklings who can’t fight. This is driven home when the grandma (and other farmers) avenge her son by killing a bandit the samurai wished to spare. They showed him no mercy despite him giving them information and begging for his life. A less violent example is when the farmers give out food and sake before the final fight, even though they were so fearful that they would have nothing left to sustain themselves before it all began. Kukichiyo’s point is that farmers are wily and defend themselves using deceit and cunning, and the samurai should not have agreed to help if they didn’t already accept this as fact. After all, the samurai kill other men for a living: they aren’t saints either.

The “good guys” in this film are supposed to be the farmers, but Kukichiyo’s characterization of them violently shoves them into the morally grey category. The idea that both sides of a war are neither good nor bad (assuming that the bandits’ raping and pillaging was necessary for their survival… doubtful, but nevertheless) is very applicable to the things we’ve been talking about in class. it seems like Seven Samurai could be interpreted as another way for Kurosawa to comment on the state of postwar Japan or—at the very least—ask the question “is one side merely the victim and the other the perpetrator?” The alliance between the farmers and samurai also support this, as historically the collective samurai’s actions were similar to those attributed to this film’s bandits.

Shino:

I think it was interesting that Manzo was afraid the samurai would live up to their reputation and rape the women of the village, yet when Shino had (consensual) sex, he turned around and called her “damaged goods.” What was more interesting, however, was the samurai trying to defend Shino. In general, the samurai in this film have a more sophisticated, morally just air about them, which may explain why they have a more liberal view towards sex.

I recently watched “Seven Samurai” and I loved it. It’s probably one of my favorite movies now.

This is my tribute to my favorite character, Kikushiyo.