Seven Samurai (2006 release)Studio: The Criterion Collection # 2
Rated: No rating noted
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audio: Japanese DD Mono
Subtitles: English
Time: 207 minutes
Disc Format: 3 DVD-9’s
Case Style: Fold out digipack
Theatrical Release Date: 1954
DVD Release Date: September 5, 2006
Seven Samurai, for all its thematic complexities and running time, is actually a very simple story: bandits are terrorizing a small village. The villagers hire six, then a seventh, samurai, to run out the bandits. The samurai enlist the help of the villagers in this cause so they may learn to help themselves. The villagers and the samurai pontificate and fight, the bandits go away. The end.
Sounds pretty simple, right? Not quite.
Seven Samurai signaled a return to pride in Japanese culture and cinema in the post war world. It was time for Japan to reassert itself during American occupation after World War II, and Kurosawa’s picture conveyed this idea in the form of the samurai.
Seven Samurai is the picture that sparked the world’s interest in the samurai ideals that had been dormant for the years following the end of the war. US occupational forces had final say over the types of pictures released in post-war Japan, and the bushido ideals the samurai exhibit did not play well with democracy.
Seven Samurai was a new take on the samurai film that delved deeper into human emotions while presenting comedic and romantic aspects. Kurosawa used a more gritty style of direction (emulating his idol, John Ford) that got away from the Kabuki theater type of swordplay into the dirtiness of death, where a man’s final moments were not necessarily heroic but gross. He also uses longer lenses and quicker cuts to give the audience more of a realistic feel. It also showed a marked change in Kurosawa’s pictures where his frustration as a Japanese and the state of his country becomes a more dominant theme in his work.
Having watched
Seven Samurai again while writing this review, and then going through the extensive extras, my appreciation has only grown for this film, which is exactly what a DVD set should do. In watching the two hour Kurosawa interview on disc three, and the Toho Masterworks documentary on disc two, I was struck by how much value Kurosawa and his crew placed on scriptwriting. In both of these docs, Kurosawa and the other participants spend great amounts of time explaining how important it was (and is) to place value in the script. Drawing on the Japanese folk tales
47 Ronin and Musashi Miyamoto, Kurosawa and his scriptwriters spent three months holed up in an inn to write
Seven Samurai, where they traded pages back and forth to come up with the final script. In watching plenty of American films, both of today and the past, I have yet to see any director go on at this length about the importance of the story/ script, and I think it clearly shows on the screen. Year by year, we are given more “product” than art: what’s going to sell, not what’s good or important. A couple exceptions to this rule are Alfonso Cuaron and, when he’s on, M. Night Shyamalan, who still seems to labor over their scripts prior to filming. Regardless, young film makers would do well to spend some time listening to Kurosawa’s advice regarding the script and the writing process.
Other notes on this edition:
- The movie is spread out over Disc 1 and Disc 2, with the break at the end of the intermission on Disc 1, approximately 1:45 into the feature.
- Criterion gives no information on the new subtitles, but there is a thread on HTF that can provide you with more information on this topic. I believe that thread is called "Criterion September releases" or something similar.
- There is a 56 page booklet included, with essays from Arthur Penn, Sydney Lumet and eight other film critics and scholars. A very good appendix to this set.
Video:
The picture is correctly framed at 1.33:1 and it is window-boxed. Criterion states this was done to, “…ensure the maximum image is visible on all monitors.” Criterion is good enough to provide us with more information about the transfer itself, so I will pass this along: “The original negative of the film is no longer available, so a new duplicate negative was created with wetgate processing from the original fine-grain master positive. This new high-definition digital transfer was created in 2K resolution on a Spirit Datacine from the new dupe negative.” The picture was also cleaned of dirt, debris, flicker and instability through several mechanical and computer processes, but there are still very noticeable instances of dirt and debris. The picture does look quite good though, and certainly better than the transfers seen in the trailers. The black and white picture exhibits excellent contrast and very good shadow detail. Grey scale was accurate as well. Both foreground and background detail is good and sharp. Edge enhancement was very minimal and there were no compression artifacts or video noise.
The video on this new edition is quite literally a night and day difference from Criterion’s previous edition. The previous edition suffers from a less clean master and it has very noticeable video compression noise and artifacts. Edge enhancement comes through on the previous release in the form of very noticeable jagged video lines surrounding every object on the screen. Detail on the original is muddy and blurry at times. The opposite is true for this new release, as it is free from the video noise and compression issues suffered by its predecessor. Detail and sharpness is superb and the picture is free from the shimmering and flicker seen in the original. Kurosawa likes to use close ups of his actors, so you will see a whole new level of detail on the samurai’s shaved heads. The overall picture is much smoother and film like. The original was presented on one DVD-9, whereas the new edition is spread out over two DVD-9’s: that is enough to allow the video the room it needs on the disc to give us this stunning and beautiful presentation, film dirt be damned!
Audio:
I watched the disc with the Dolby Digital mono track engaged as this is the way the picture was originally presented. Sound was basically pretty flat and uninteresting as can be expected from big, fat mono. There is also a Dolby Surround track, so I did some spot comparisons only to find a hollow sounding surround field. In the opening, when the bandits are storming the village, it sounds as if you are in a tin can. Since the characters speak with such passion in most scenes, it sounds like the volume levels in this surround track are being pushed to their limits and fringing at the top end. There seems to almost be a cracking on the voices, but I attribute that to the available source elements and the way the film was recorded (or, perhaps, re-mastered), not a fault of the transfer. While it’s not bad by any means, it doesn’t have the clarity of many other DVD releases from this era. The musical score came through in a similar manner but it too is a little flat. While it is interesting to experience the film with the surrounds engaged, I much rather preferred the mono track as it didn’t seem as abusive to the ears as the surround track. LFE’s are not even noticed, with the entire soundtrack staying in the mid range. The mono track seems to be the same one from the previous release.
As with the video, Criterion notes the following about the soundtrack: “The original monaural soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from an optical soundtrack print…The new surround mix was created from original optical track recordings, original stereo music masters, and original production sound-effects masters. Audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss and crackle.”
Bonus Material: Since the bonus material is spread over all three discs, I have set up the review the same way.
Disc One:2 audio commentaries: one by film scholars David Desser, Joan Mellen, Stephen Prince, Tony Rayns, and Donald Richie, and one by Japanese film expert Michael Jeck: The commentary by Jeck is the same one on the original release, but the other one is brand new. It is a non-stop commentary where the five participants each make comments about different parts of the picture. Each of them contributes information about the making of the picture, the history of the time period, information about the technical aspects of the shoot, and behind the scenes happenings. Both commentaries are well worth the seven hours it may take you to listen to them.
3 Theatrical Trailers and teaser : The first trailer was the re-release from 1991; the second one is missing the sound as the master no longer existed. The latter one is interesting in that it takes behind the scenes footage of the characters, apparently from screen tests, to introduce them. It then goes on to show behind the scenes on location footage. The third one is more traditional. None of them have really been cleaned up like the feature.
Gallery of rare posters and behind-the-scenes and production stills: 21 behind the scenes photos, including a great one of the snowed in village from 1954. The Toho doc addresses this problem the crew faced. The posters are from Japan, Poland, Great Britain, the U. S., and Argentina. I am always interested to see how each country modifies the images to suit their marketing needs. For these posters, Mifune’s screaming visage is present on all of them.
Disc Two:Documentary on the making of Seven Samurai (50:00): This documentary was made as part of the
Toho Masterworks series
Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create. It features interviews with writer Shinobu Hashimoto, set decorator Koichi Hamamura, script supervisor Teruyo Nogami, and actors Seiji Miyaguchi and Yoshio Tsuchiya. Kurosawa is also interviewed, and he is in a much more philosophical mood here as opposed to the later interview. We get to see the room where the script was written, as well as the original script and the score book. Of particular interest to me was a visit to the Akira Kurosawa Memorial Museum, leading me to wonder why we don’t have such shrines to our famous directors.
Disc Three: The Supplements:My Life in Cinema (1:55): a video conversation between Akira Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima from 1993, produced by the Directors Guild of Japan. Kurosawa and Oshima talk about: Kurosawa’s childhood, his brief career as a painter, how he began his film career, his time in training at Japanese studios as an assistant director, the history of Toho, Japanese film censors, life during wartime, his creative process, scriptwriting, directing actors, actors he’s directed, musical scoring, and directing in general. This is an outstanding and lengthy interview (with the exception of Oshima’s constant “uh-huh” and “hm”’s in the background) and worth every minute of viewing time.
Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences (55:08): a new documentary looking at the samurai traditions and films that impacted Kurosawa’s masterpiece. It gives a good beginners background to what comprises a samurai and the differences between samurai film and swordplay films. We also get a discussion on the psyche of the samurai and the ideals that comprise the lifestyle. The participants from the new director’s commentary contribute here as well.
Conclusions:
So far for 2006, this is my vote for release of the year. Criterion has labored long and hard on the video and bonus material and we are the benefactors. The movie itself comes in at almost three and a half hours; then, you can spend another eleven plus hours going through the supplements. Oh, yeah, and you get a pretty good movie too! I don’t think it comes as any surprise…
Highly Recommended!
