Seven Samurai (Japanese: 七人の侍, Hepburn: Shichinin no Samurai) is a 1954 Japanese epic samurai film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa. Taking place in 1586[a] in the Sengoku period of Japanese history, it follows the story of a village of desperate farmers who seek to hire rōnin (masterless samurai) to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.
At the time, the film was the most expensive film made in Japan. It took a year to shoot and faced many difficulties. It was the second-highest-grossing domestic film in Japan in 1954. Many reviews compared the film to westerns.[4]
Seven Samurai is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films in cinema history. Since its release, it has consistently ranked highly in critics’ lists of greatest films, such as the BFI‘s Sight & Sound and Rotten Tomatoes polls.[5][6][7][8] It was also voted the greatest foreign-language film of all time in BBC‘s 2018 international critics’ poll.[9] Its influence on the film industry has been unprecedented, and it is often regarded today as one of the most “remade, reworked, and referenced” films in cinema.[10]
