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Who is japan's best director? None other than Akira Kurosawa!
Which film is the first in the history of Japanese cinema? None other than Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai!
Akira Kurosawa is Japan's "film emperor" and a highly respected world film master.
How influential was he?
The director of "Once Upon a Time in America", Sergio Leone, was deeply influenced by Akira Kurosawa and remade his "Heart Stick" into "Red Dead Redemption", which became famous in World War I;
Francis Ford Coppola, the director of The Godfather 2, once humbly said, "If I could make a movie with a master, I'd rather be his assistant." "This master is referring to Akira Kurosawa.
Domestically, Chen Kaige is known as "Akira Kurosawa of China", and when a reporter from the "New Weekly" asked him how he evaluated this title, he waved his hands one after another: "I dare not be." ”
Zhang Yimou is even more fond of Akira Kurosawa, his "Hero" borrows from Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon", and his "Shadow" is similar to Akira Kurosawa's "Shadow Samurai".
Not only in the film industry, the Hong Kong music scene "Word Sage" Lin Xi has written a song "Black Choice Ming", the song name is harmonic "Kurosawa Akira", which is a tribute to this master.
This song was originally written by Lin Xi to Zhang Guorong, in the early years Lin Xi wrote a large number of depressive words to Zhang Guorong, when Zhang Guorong suffered from depression, he wanted to rely on this tribute to Kurosawa Ming's lyrics to help Zhang Guorong out of the haze, how to expect the latter to die.
The song was finally interpreted by Eason Chan affectionately, and later Lin Xi revealed when receiving the "Golden Needle Award" that this song helped a fan survive depression and successfully pulled the other party back from the brink of suicide.
The lyrics of "Black Selection" read:
The "he" here is Akira Kurosawa, and the hot and glowing people here are the poor people with flesh and blood in "Seven Samurai".
Today, with great reverence, Pigo will take everyone to interpret this "Seven Samurai".
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writers: Akira Kurosawa / Hero of Kokoku / Shinobu Hashimoto
Starring: Toshiro Mifune / Joe Shimura / Yoshio Inaba / Seiji Miyaguchi / Shigeru Chiaki / ...
Genre: Drama / Action / Adventure
Country/Region of Production: Japan Douban Score: 9.2
Released in 1954 and directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring his imperial actor Toshiro Mifune, the film tells the story of a poor japanese man and seven samurai who work together to fend off mountain thieves during the Sengoku period.
There are several versions of the film, Pigo first launched a 203-minute director's restoration, more than three hours of film, Kurosawa Akira skillfully blended the spirit of Japanese Bushido with western entertainment culture, with his skillful technology, genius-like creativity to show us a new world of cinema.
To read Seven Samurai, you first need to understand its story background.
The film takes place around 1587, between the late Muromachi shogunate and the Azuchi Momoyama period, and is Japan's "Sengoku period".
At that time, Japan was experiencing a century-long civil war, the people were not happy, many samurai dependent masters were killed, they became displaced ronin, and the status of peasants was one level lower than that of samurai, and they were plagued by mountain thieves.
Peasants and samurai formed an interdependent relationship.
Last year, Pigo introduced a Japanese film called "Cut belly", which takes place around 1603 during the Tokugawa shogunate period and is almost identical to the background of the story of "Seven Samurai".
Understanding the background of the times, we further sorted out the plot.
The plot of this film can be summed up in one sentence: "Seven samurai vs. forty thieves".
It sounds simple, but the master cow is able to tell a simple story fascinatingly.
At the beginning of the film, villager Rigi is ordered to go to the city with three other villagers to hire samurai, and a heroic samurai kanbei pretends to be a monk to rescue the children abducted by robbers, which attracts passers-by.
Among the four, the rich man Katsushiro immediately stepped forward to ask kanbei as a teacher, and Rigi also took the opportunity to invite kanbei back to the village to defend their homeland, and the kanbei at first refused, but later learned that the villagers ate the weeds that could get night blindness, but left white rice for him to eat, and the kanbei moved their compassion and took over the task.
The guards thought about it and felt that only the seven samurai could resist the attack of the bandits, so they recruited idlers with the villagers.
Soon, four able men will be recruited to the command of the Kanbei Guards, namely: Qilangji, a comrade-in-arms of the Kanbei Guards, Goro Bingwei, who is touched by the character of the Kanbei Guards, Heihachi, who is a Buddhist wood chopper, and Kuzo, who is excellent in martial arts.
Four people plus two guards, Gongzi Katsushiro volunteered to join, although his skills were not perfect, he touched his master with sincerity.
At this time, a drunk man who called himself a samurai introduced himself with a family tree, but the person on the family tree named Kiku Chiaki was only 13 years old, which did not match this middle-aged man with a full face of hair, and it was obvious that this drunk man was deceiving people.
Time was pressing, and the guards did not have time to recruit a seventh, and the next day they returned to the village with six samurai.
On the way, the fake samurai kept gaging at the six people, and gradually everyone accepted this guy who was not coming from the right way.
Here Pi Ge interjected, the "Mediterranean style" hairstyle popular among Japanese samurai at that time was really unique, but the joke is a joke, this hairstyle can be popular because of many benefits, not only can refresh the mind, but also maintain combat effectiveness from being disturbed by foreign objects, but also eliminate the trouble of baldness.
When the seven samurai returned to the village, the villagers were frightened and hidden, and the peasant Manzo forced his daughter to shave her hair and dress as a man to avoid the humiliation of the samurai, until Kikuchiyo rang the warning stick, and the villagers walked out in panic.
It turned out that the samurai at that time had the right to kill the villagers who were disrespectful to them, and the villagers asked for the samurai on the one hand, and on the other hand, they were wary of him.
This relationship is similar to the relationship between the protagonist and the traitor in "Three Kingdoms Killing".
After settling the villagers, the survey guards began to deploy strategies to resist the enemy: set up barriers in the west, demolish bridges in the east, flood the south side, and leave only the north entrance.
The method used by the survey guards is similar to the "siege must be lacking" in Sun Tzu's Art of War: leave a mouth to lure the enemy, and after the enemy penetrates deeply, catch turtles in the urn.
After the deployment was completed, the seven samurai began to train the peasants, and suddenly the whole village was full of soldiers.
Several episodes occurred during this time:
First, Gongzi Katsushiro and the villager Wanzao's daughter rolled the grass, but because the samurai could not marry the peasants, the love between the two also died;
Second, Kikuchiyo holds a rural abandoned baby and cries that the child is the same as his own life, exposing his identity as a farmer;
Third, Kikuchiyo learned the harsh truth from the villagers- the villagers actually had rice and faces but deliberately cried in front of the samurai, and the villagers also killed the fallen samurai and robbed the samurai of their weapons.
The Seven Samurai knew this and felt very bad in their hearts, but unfortunately there was no turning back from the bow.
The cunning and selfish nature of the villagers and the tragic fate of the samurai have become irreconcilable contradictions within their group, and also reveal the tragic ending of the film in advance.
Fortunately, these episodes did not really distract the army, and when the mountain thief spies attacked, they were immediately taken down by Kuzo and Kikuchiyo.
Immediately after the villager Riki took Kuzo, Heihachi and Kikuchiyo to the mountain thief's lair, they set a fire, the mountain thief was immediately burned to the point of scattering, one of the mountain thieves took the initiative to throw herself into the fire pit to commit suicide, Rigi cried out, it turned out that the woman was his wife, she was captured by the mountain thief and humiliated, she had no face to face her husband, so she committed suicide by throwing herself into the fire.
Heihachi goes to rescue Riki and is killed by enemy muskets.
There were only six samurai left, Kikuchiyo drew a battle flag, the flag hunted, and the real war began.
The battle lasted for several days, the battle was fierce, and to make a long story short, the mountain thieves did indeed win the "siege must be lacking", but after all, they had muskets and war horses, and the besieged mountain thieves still killed GoroBei, Kuzo and Kikuchiyo, one of the seven samurai, in a dying struggle.
At the end of the battle, all 40 mountain thieves were destroyed, and the seven samurai on this side suffered heavy losses, and four were killed, leaving only three people, Kanbei, Shichirōji, and Katsushiro.
Sadly, the peasants celebrated their victory with joy, but no one sent off the samurai.
The lonely three men stood in front of the tombs of the four samurai, and the guards said meaningfully, "We have lost the battle, and it is the peasants who have won the victory." ”
This concludes the 203-minute film.
Due to the relationship of the times, many people now watch "Seven Samurai" can not taste the taste, look sleepy, and even question the Douban score "thick ancient and thin to the present".
But 65 years ago, Seven Samurai was groundbreaking.
From the story, it has created a narrative mode of "recruiting soldiers to complete a task", although this story is simple, but through the combing just now, you will find that a simple story line has grown a lot of dense branches, more than three hours, the rhythm control is precise, the plot design is meticulous, so that the audience feels an immersive viewing experience.
In terms of characters, each samurai has a clear division of labor,
The scout guard is a leader, and his ability to control the overall situation is first-class;
Shichirōji is a loyal and character-oriented sand monk similar to that of Journey to the West;
Goro Bingwei is a wise bearer, and the role positioning is similar to that of Wu Yong, the "Wisdom Multi-Star" of "Water Margin";
PingBa is optimistic and responsible, punishing the strong and helping the weak when advancing, and splitting firewood and making fires when retreating;
Kuzo's prototype is Miyamoto Musashi, who is the leader of the strength and the regiment during the war, and carries out the entire team;
Katsushiro is the hope bearer, he represents the hope of the samurai, he is in love, he worships the teacher, he is full of sharpness, he is full of justice;
Kikuchiyo is the unknown "X factor", he seems to be gag, but in fact, the most important role in the whole film.
At first, the avatar is comical, making people laugh; the middle body is a pioneer, probing intelligence; and finally it is passionate, and the blood is splashed three steps.
He stirred up the whole plot as a spoiler, and it's no wonder that Akira Kurosawa gave the role to his golden partner, Toshiro Mifune.
In terms of composition, Akira Kurosawa himself is very talented in painting, he studied under Theoki Okamoto of the Western School, once dreamed of becoming a painter, and later after contact with movies, he transplanted his pursuit of visual color into film shooting.
Many of the compositions of "Seven Samurai" are hand-drawn by Akira Kurosawa, and many of the pictures are divided into nine palaces that strictly follow the golden ratio of composition.
For example, tic-tac-toe composition;
Composition of up and down;
Circular composition;
Triangular composition.
In terms of soundtrack, the director has configured different music for different classes and different scenes:
The low drums that sound when the mountain thief appears, the chanting music when the peasants appear, the exciting wind music that appears in the samurai, the cheerful music exclusive to Kikuchiyo, and the love music between Katsushiro and the village girl are all closely integrated with the plot, making people intoxicated and unable to extricate themselves.
It can be said that "Seven Samurai" is perfect to be impeccable on one hand, and careful scrutiny is enough to write a paper, which is limited in space and Pigo cannot cover everything.
Enjoying "Seven Samurai" is not only a simple movie, but also a rare artistic enjoyment, and every few years you watch "Seven Samurai" will have a different spiritual experience.
We salute Seven Samurai, to Akira Kurosawa!
Text/Pippi Movie Special Author: Ninja loves to eat fish
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