The Big Picture Akira Kurosawa brought a number of iconic films to the silver screen, but the standout is definitely Seven Samurai. Its simple yet powerful story of warriors assembling to defend a small village from bandits is the pinnacle of the samurai genre, while films like The Magnificent Seven and Rebel Moon looked to it for inspiration. In fact, the Western genre owes a lot of gratitude to Kurosawa's films.
Seven Samurai NRDramaAction A poor village under attack by bandits recruits seven unemployed samurai to help them defend themselves. This led to the creation of the samurai Kikuchyo, who's played by Kurosawa's frequent collaborator Toshiro Mifune in the final film. Kikucyho is the standout character in Seven Samurai, hiding his tragic past behind confrontational behavior and providing Mifune with a different character from the stoic swordsman he'd portray in Yojimbo. But even after Kurosawa, Oguji, and Hashimoto settled on the story of Seven Samurai, it took them six weeks to hash out the script.
Related This 'Seven Samurai' Actor Was George Lucas' First Choice for Star Wars A legend in Japanese filmmaking was the desired pick for two iconic roles in the first Star Wars movie. Seven Samurai ended up costing $500,000. That's a fraction of what most blockbusters or even independent productions cost today, but in the 1950s it was unheard of for a Japanese production to exceed $70,000 dollars.