Les - 7 Samurai

And that is why, 70 years later, we are still watching those seven men walk into the rain. We are mourning not their deaths, but the beautiful, futile nobility of their choice.

This is a wonderful request, because Les 7 Samouraïs ( Shichinin no Samurai ) is not merely a great film; it is a cinematic Rosetta Stone. Directed by Akira Kurosawa and released in 1954, it is a film that feels simultaneously ancient (rooted in Japanese history and Noh theatre) and radically modern (inventing action movie grammar). les 7 samurai

The matchlock gun is the villain of the film, not the bandit leader. For 3.5 hours, we watch exquisite swordplay. Then, in a second, a peasant with a shaky hand pulls a trigger and the best swordsman (Kyuzo) collapses. Kurosawa shows the bullet wound: a small, unheroic hole. And that is why, 70 years later, we