AKIRA KUROSAWA
A truly good movie is really enjoyable, too.
There's nothing complicated about it.
A truly good movie is interesting and easy to understand.
Ready.
Action!
He loved cinema and believed in its power.
Akira Kurosawa lived his life for cinema.
He made 30 films in his lifetime,
all of which have been appreciated worldwide.
Kurosawa's films have had a great impact on the film industry.
Let's take a look at his passion FINAL SCENE OF MADADA YO
throughout the 55 years of moviemaking
that began with Sanshiro Sugata.
Cut!
IT IS WONDERFUL TO CREATE! - AKIRA KUROSAWA
IT WAS ALL THERE IN THE SCRIPT
I often say this, but cinema is like a public square
where people of the world gather.
On the screen, we see people living in different parts of the world,
and we share the full spectrum of their emotions
and come to understand them.
When we see them happy, we're happy. When they suffer, we suffer too.
So I say that cinema is a system
that can inspire people of the world to get along.
The greatest masterpiece in the history of Japanese cinema:
Seven Samurai.
The film had a great impact on filmmakers in Japan
as well as overseas.
Hot damn! Here they come!
Let me share the background of how the film was conceived
as we highlight some key scenes.
ATAMI, DECEMBER 1952
In 1952, three men gathered
at an inn in Atami.
They came to write a screenplay for Seven Samurai,
Kurosawa's tenth film, following Ikiru.
In order to write a realistic action story with samurai as a theme,
the three men shut themselves up in this room.
Seven Samurai is considered the greatest film in the history of cinema,
the film that exemplifies the truest nature of the medium.
A writer who has written many plays, MASAYUKI YUI - ACTOR
Hisashi Inoue, has said, "First of all, the script is wonderful.
It's as if it was rendered by some supernatural power."
The script held in such high esteem
was conceived in this very room.
Kurosawa sat here and worked on the script.
He and two writers holed up in here for the duration of the task.
The script,
which these three men completed after 45 days of struggle,
would go on to upset the long-held conventions of Japanese period drama.
THE ABANDONED FIRST SCENE
During the Civil Wars,
an endless cycle of conflict left the countryside overrun by bandits.
Peaceable folk lived in terror of the thunder of approaching hooves...
Seven Samurai starts
with the thundering gallop of bandits'horses.
In an epic drama of three hours and 27 minutes,
the first line of dialogue is this one, spoken by one of the bandits.
Take this village too?
The bandit says, "Take this village too?"
In the script there was actually a preceding scene
of another village being attacked by the bandits.
Therefore, the bandits were on their way back from that raid.
Including the preceding scene would have enhanced the film's action-movie quality,
but Kurosawa took it out. Why did he do that?
I don't like a very elaborate first scene.
It's not good when the first scene is really impressive.
It should be an unassuming lead-in to the story.
Even working from such a highly praised script,
Kurosawa was unsparing.
In fact, Seven Samurai was the result
of discarding various ideas from the script-writing stage.
HIRING SAMURAI
We fight.
Old Man, that's madness.
We're farmers. What do we know of battle?
We'll hire samurai.
Whoever heard of farmers hiring samurai?
Farmers hiring samurai
was a truly extraordinary idea
that started the story rolling.
The script was written by these three men:
Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni,
the same threesome that wrote the script for Ikiru.
SCREENPLAY BY AKIRA KUROSAWA, SHINOBU HASHIMOTO, HIDEO OGUNI
Oguni didn't write a single line. SHINOBU HASHIMOTO - SCREENWRITER
Kurosawa and I would be writing
on this side of the table, and Oguni would be on that side.
We'd write a few pages and pass them to Oguni.
He'd read them, and when he said, "Good," then that was it,
but when he criticized what he read, we'd have to rewrite it.
With Oguni steering the storyline,
Kurosawa and Hashimoto did the actual writing.
Kurosawa was good at telling stories, WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL STORY?
So I'd find myself getting caught up.
He said, "A samurai wakes up in the morning, right?
He must certainly groom himself by shaving the top of his head.
Then he prays at a Buddhist altar, has breakfast and goes to work.
At the castle, where he works, he makes a very minor mistake,
and when he comes home, he kills himself by performing harakiri.
Isn't that a good story?"
He tells it so well, you can't help but agree.
He also said it was going to be a realistic period drama
unlike any we were then familiar with.
He said, "Period dramas came from Kabuki,
so there's too much Kabuki influence.
But movies in this genre should be different.
I want to make a realistic period movie."
And he asked me to conduct thorough research to that end.
So I did research, met a lot of people and asked a lot of questions.
But I couldn't find out anything relevant.
In the end, "A Day in a Samurai's Life" was abandoned.
Kurosawa said,
"There were great swordsmen
like Bokuzen Tsukahara and Sekishusai Yagyu.
We can make a film highlighting five such swordsmen's famous battles.
It'll be an action-filled samurai movie,
and I think we can make something interesting.
What do you think?"
It took me about three months to write a script based on that idea.
As I reread the completed script,
I wasn't completely happy with it,
but Kurosawa was anxiously waiting,
because six months had elapsed since the first idea for the harakiri story.
So I took the script to his house in Komaya,
where he was living at the time, and he immediately began reading.
He read each page carefully, taking his time.
I had no choice but to just sit there.
Finally he finished reading the last page and put it down.
He said, "Hashimoto,
I guess it wasn't a good idea
to construct an entire movie as a series of climaxes."
So that second idea was thrown out too.
And thus his next film project came to a halt.
The harakiri story was out, and so was the swordsmen story.
So he and I talked
to Sojiro Motoki SOJIRO MOTOKI - PRODUCER
about the days when there were many swordsmen.
We asked, "These swordsmen traveled all over Japan to perfect their skill.
It doesn't seem they were well-off or had much money.
How were they able to travel?"
Motoki looked into it right away, and he came back with answers.
Around the end of the Civil Wars, when a martial artist
traveled around the country to perfect his swordsmanship,
he'd visit a kendo school and be given one night's lodging and a meal.
And the next morning he'd be served breakfast.
He'd also be given a handful of dried, cooked rice,
which was to serve as his lunch on the road.
So these swordsmen were able to travel with very little money.
Then I asked, "What about when there was no kendo school?"
And he told me that Buddhist temples gave them lodging.
In those days, Buddhist temples would always let them stay.
Temples provided a night's lodging and a meal,
as well as breakfast the next morning.
If there was neither a kendo school nor a Buddhist temple, then what?
I wanted to know what happened in such a situation
and asked Motoki to find out.
He told me that around the end of the Civil Wars,
there were bandits everywhere.
Because of this problem with bandits, if a samurai went to a peasant village
and served on a night watch, then he was provided with a meal.
I thought, "This is it!"
Right then and there we decided we'd write a story
about farmers hiring samurai to fight the bandits.
How did Kurosawa work during the script-writing process?
I'd pass him what I'd just written.
He'd mutter, "What is this? This is rubbish."
He'd yell at me, "Don't you have any sense of the flow of the story?
I'll tell you how this sequence should be written."
I wasn't the director, so I didn't think like a director.
There was nothing I could do but rewrite the entire sequence.
When I was done, I'd pass the pages to him.
He'd grunt as he read them. Then he'd get angry and say,
"You can write well when you apply yourself.
Why didn't you do it right the first time?"
Kurosawa's storyboard for the film's trailer is preserved.
The storyboard states that the film depicts
ideal samurai whose conduct is not motivated by fame or greed.
Kurosawa said that being holed up in that inn for 45 days
was really hard.
When he got tired, he'd walk out HIROMICHI HORIKAWA - DIRECTOR
to the garden and watch the carp in the pond,
but he never stepped outside the inn.
"A movie as rich
as a buttered steak topped with grilled eel. "
This was how Kurosawa answered when asked to describe the film.
THE SAMURAI THEME
Among the music that Fumio Hayasaka composed,
the "Samurai Theme"from Seven Samurai is the most popular piece.
We hear the music for the first time in this scene with Kambei.
MUSIC NOTEBOOK FOR SEVEN SAMURAI
Actually, Hayasaka had originally discarded the piece.
The pieces that Hayasaka had prepared for the film
were not to Kurosawa's liking and were all rejected.
In desperation, Hayasaka picked up a previously discarded score
and played it on the piano for Kurosawa, and it was accepted.
The music really grabs you.
The "grabbing" Kurosawa talked about. SHIN'ICHIRO IKEBE - MUSIC DIRECTOR
You mean the theme from Seven Samurai?
You hear it once and can't forget it, because it has a strong flavor,
and yet it has no unnecessary elements.
It's solid and direct, like calligraphy of a single stroke.
Kurosawa liked that kind of music.
I heard Kurosawa asked Hayasaka to compose something like that,
but he didn't like the pieces Hayasaka played for him.
After the last piece, Hayasaka said he actually had one more.
He played a piece retrieved from the trash basket, and that was the one.
Hayasaka may have planned it that way.
Like your "eighth piece" that you used to place last on purpose.
Maybe the piece in the trash basket was the one he liked the best.
I shouldn't say that. It's disrespectful.
THE PERSONALITIES OF THE SEVEN SAMURAI
When the seven samurai arrive at the village,
they're received coldly by the farmers, who are fearful of them.
Hey, what's wrong?
What's the matter?
This is a fine welcome.
Something was needed to connect the farmers and samurai.
That role would fall to Mifune.
No one saw any bandits?
Then who sounded the alarm?
KIKUCHIYO: I did!
Hey, blockheads.
Remember how you welcomed us when we got here?
But as soon as I bang on this,
"Samurai, sirs! Samurai, please!"
You're practically groveling!
Got what you deserved, you mud snails.
Kurosawa designated Kikuchiyo, played by Mifune,
as the buffoon who serves as a bridge between the farmers and the samurai.
The seven men are rich in character.
How were their personalities determined?
When I agreed to write the script and we got together to write,
Kurosawa pulled out a notebook and placed it on the table.
Then he opened the notebook, and I could see his notes.
The name Shichiroji was circled, and his description followed.
"He's five feet and some inches tall,
and a little on the pudgy side.
He walks in such-and-such a manner.
He speaks in such-and-such a way.
When he's called from behind, he looks back in response
in a certain way in case of emergency, and in a different manner otherwise."
Each of the seven samurai was described in similar detail.
Shimura's character Kambei resembles
Nobutsuna Koizumi in the abandoned script about the swordsmen.
So we made good use of the attributes of the characters in that script
to flesh out the seven characters.
For instance, Seiji Miyaguchi's character resembles Musashi Miyamoto.
So a character outline had been prepared for each of the seven men.
When I initially saw the contents of Kurosawa's notebook,
I thought, "Wow! He really puts great effort into his films."
AKIRA KUROSAWA MEMORIAL HALL
The notes Hashimoto refers to still exist.
Some of the notes are on display, along with many other valuable items,
at the Akira Kurosawa Memorial Hall.
Here are Kurosawa's film notebooks.
They were discovered after his death in 1998
and are filled with an unbelievable amount of images.
Many of the notes seem to reveal secrets to Kurosawa's filmmaking.
A total of 46 notebooks were discovered,
and six of them contained notes for Seven Samurai.
Written in them were fragments of elements to be inserted into the film,
Kurosawa's perspective on tackling the project,
and a detailed character outline for each of the seven samurai.
Some notes came to be used as part of the film's dialogue.
These are names considered for the seven samurai.
KAMBEI, GENTA, KATSUSHIRO, SHINKURO, SABUROBEI, MAGOBEl
Kambei, the leader of the seven men,
was to be played by Takashi Shimura from the very beginning.
He's described as a man of nearly 50 years
with striking white hair ILLUSTRA TION BYAKIRA KUROSAWA
who's fought in many battles, but never on the winning side.
It's the most important role,
since it's his personality that brings the other men together.
ILLUSTRATION BY KOHEl EZAKI
There's nothing special about me.
I may have seen my share of battle,
but always on the losing side.
That about sums me up.
Gorobei is positioned as Kambei's adviser and right-hand man.
Kurosawa reminds himself not to make the character into a lesser Kambei.
This scene to test Gorobei's ability as a swordsman was taken
from an episode in Bokuzen Tsukahara's life.
YOSHIO INABA AS GOROBEl
Surely you jest.
Heihachi, who sets the mood for the group,
is also a great master at coming up with nicknames.
What's wrong, Lord Kikuchiyo?
MINORU CHIAKI AS HEIHACHI
What's the matter, junior?
Shichiroji is Kambei's loyal helpmate.
Truth is, there's a tough battle ahead leading to neither money nor rank.
Will you join? - Yes.
This may be the one that kills us.
DAISUKE KATO AS SHICHIROJI
Katsushiro is the son of a wealthy landowner.
He ran away to become a samurai against his parents' wishes.
Tomorrow you go home. ISAO KIMURA AS KATSUSHIRO
You've learned a lot these four or five days.
You have fine stories to tell.
Kyuzo is a master swordsman modeled after Musashi Miyamoto.
His conduct is based on strict, self-imposed rules.
He is haughty and cold in demeanor.
His first appearance also resembles an episode in the swordsmen script.
I had never tried my hand at kendo, SEIJI MIYAGUCHI - ACTOR
and I was to play a master swordsman,
so I declined at first, feeling I wasn't right for the role.
But Kurosawa assured me it was all up to the magic of camerawork,
so I accepted the role.
I learned how to wield a sword in a crash course of one or two days,
which caused a spell of anemia,
and I couldn't move the day before I was to shoot a scene.
Although Kyuzo comes off as a merciless swordsman,
he has a gentle heart underneath.
How are you? Tired?
Poor man. You've lost a lot of weight.
I'll go. I swear I'll get one!
No. You're looking to die. I'll go.
In the script there was a scene in which Kyuzo turns out to be clumsy
when he helps farmers with harvesting wheat.
Although the scene was shot, it was cut from the film.
Kikuchiyo, played by Toshiro Mifune,
is the most colorful character among the seven men.
Initially, the character was named Zenbei in Kurosawa's notebook.
Zenbei is described as a man with a dreadful past,
a monstrous product of the Age of Civil Wars,
a character with a dark background.
When Zenbei was changed to Kikuchiyo, gone was the dark characterization.
What remained was a character
described as an unconventional, almost primitive, hot-blooded man,
all of which fully drew out Mifune's magnetism.
But tell me this: Who turned them into such monsters?
You did! You samurai did!
A wild, hot-blooded man,
Kikuchiyo was yet another person whose life was thrown off course
by the turmoil of the civil wars.
This baby... is me.
This is just what happened to me.
CAPTURING LIGHT IN THE EYES
Within the solidly masculine movie, the only love story that takes place
involves a farmer's daughter and a samurai.
It's all right. I don't mind. We can't know
what the future holds!
In Kurosawa's films, light must be caught in the eyes of the actor.
In this scene in which Shino expresses her feelings to Katsushiro,
the script describes her eyes as "glittering."
The use of mirrors that had proved successful in Rashomon
became standard practice when lighting scenes in the woods.
AKIRA KUROSAWA When lighting this scene proved to be difficult,
Kurosawa himself helped out.
Keiko Tsushima, who played Shino, injured her eyes
from repeated screen tests and retakes.
Still, Kurosawa wasn't satisfied.
Kurosawa wasn't happy with the shots of the scene taken there,
so we had to reshoot it on a studio set. He said that was okay.
But when I got home in the evening, MITSUO KANEKO - LIGHTING TECHNICIAN
I felt responsible and couldn't sleep.
Here is one scene Kaneko is proud of.
We can clearly see the light caught in Shino's eyes.
Kurosawa wanted her eyes to look
like those of a hawk aimed at its prey.
So I embedded the lights in the field
in order to light her from below.
PROBLEMS BURNING DOWN THE WATER MILL
The scene of the burning water mill
was shot before the scene of the fire at the bandits'fortress.
The key point was to capture the roaring flames
in the background of the action taking place, but it didn't go smoothly.
Where's the Old Man and your husband?
Yoshiro Muraki, who was then an assistant in production design,
remembers shooting the scene.
When working with Kurosawa, YOSHIRO MURAKI - PRODUCTION DESIGNER
people try to be super-efficient.
We wrapped parts of the mill in fabric,
so when we set the fire, it flamed up at once.
Then we extinguished the fire to continue shooting on subsequent days.
The mill was soggy from then on and wouldn't burn. It only smoked.
We were in trouble.
But in such a situation,
Kurosawa never scolded the props crew.
That was his tactic.
He'd line the assistant directors up in front of everyone
and lecture them about being more alert.
Hearing this, the props crew would feel terrible.
Later that evening, Kurosawa would drink with the ADs to soothe their feelings.
When he lectured the crew, he'd point his finger like this and bark,
as if scolding those furthest in the back.
So I felt that his directing was not limited to actual shooting.
He applied it elsewhere too.
The mill was rebuilt three times,
and the scene was finally completed.
This is just what happened to me.
TRAGED Y AT THE BANDITS' FORTRESS
In the scene of a surprise attack at the bandits'fortress,
as the fortress is engulfed in panic,
Rikichi encounters his wife, who had been sacrificed to the bandits,
as narrated in the script.
The fire at the fortress was to start slowly.
However, the fire grew much more quickly than expected.
That day, we had a dry-air alert YOSHIO TSUCHIYA - ACTOR
and needed a fire truck standing by to shoot a fire scene.
But all fire trucks had been dispatched that morning.
To put out real fires.
So none came to the set.
We had to wait a very long time.
Finally, when it was almost dusk, about seven fire trucks arrived.
Even back then, you couldn't shoot a fire scene
without a fire truck standing by.
And all that time spent waiting led to trouble.
Because while we, meaning the actors,
just waited patiently for the fire trucks,
Kurosawa and props master Hamamura
used the extra time to make sure
that they'd have no problem starting the fire
by spraying a little gasoline here and there.
So when the shooting finally began,
and I set the fire, as I was supposed to,
it just burst into flames!
Since the shoot involved burning the huge fortress set,
there was no chance to do a retake.
Kurosawa's repeated shout of "Keep going!"
Rang throughout the set,
as the actors continued to play their parts.
Serves you right!
We did it!
The cliff behind the fortress was built of sheets of tin,
and the grass behind the cliff was burnt from the heat of the fire.
As Rikichi, played by Tsuchiya, tries to run after his wife, an incident occurs.
The overgarment that Rikichi's wife wore cost several million yen.
She takes it off, drops it, and then runs away.
As I reacted and tried to run after her, there was no flame nearby,
but the overgarment just disintegrated
and burned up in an instant.
The hot air attacks Tsuchiya.
I didn't tell anyone, but I got burned here, on the windpipe.
From inhaling the hot blast?
Because the air, which is hotter than the flames -
I remember it well. The fortress's roof was intact
while my wife was still in the scene,
though it was already very hot.
But after she ran away, I had to continue acting.
Just as I was about to run after her,
a huge hole opened up above and the roof caved in.
Then this hot air rushed out toward the entrance, where I was.
Even so, Tsuchiya tries to enter the fortress,
but the intense heat blocks his way.
When I saw the rushes later, the horses were all gone.
Yes, the horse in the foreground ran away.
And actors playing slain bandits...
were wiggling away like this, like maggots.
Trying to stop Rikichi from following his wife,
Heihachi, played by Minoru Chiaki,
is felled by a gunshot and dies.
Chiaki didn't come to stop me.
I was making as if to run in, but he didn't come.
If he didn't stop you, you'd really have to go in.
I'd really have to go into the burning fortress.
There was no way I could. I remember thinking that.
Later, I spotted Chiaki in the rushes of shots taken with a long lens.
At a spot quite far from the fortress's entrance,
he was lying on the ground as though he'd been shot dead.
The sequence involving the two actors was later reshot and inserted,
but it was impossible to reshoot shots including the entire fortress.
What the hell are you doing?
As Kurosawa shouted "Cut!" Fire trucks began hosing down the fire.
In the midst of all the confusion, Kurosawa stood alone and cried,
having finished a very risky and dangerous shoot.
THE TRUTH BEHIND THE BATTLE IN THE RAIN
The night before the final battle, the rain turns into a downpour,
and this serves as a prologue to the legendary battle scene in the rain.
To simulate the start of rainfall, KOICHI HAMAMURA - SET DECORATOR
I made a gadget, which I ended up not using.
It was a rotary unit with an umbrella top.
I experimented with it,
but it was later decided to just sprinkle water with bamboo leaves.
But for close-up shots, we used syringes as well as bamboo leaves.
There are 13 left.
We'll let them all in.
Once they pass this point,
we close in from all sides at the crossing.
Everything's riding on this battle!
Teruyo Nogami, script supervisor at the time, kept her copy of the script.
The pages of the battle scene are covered with notes,
nearly obliterating the printed lines.
She even had to add an extra sheet for her notes.
This surprises everyone. TERUYO NOGAMI - SCRIPT SUPERVISOR
I like to show people, because they're always surprised.
It's well known that the shoot went on longer than scheduled.
It was supposed to wrap in three months, but that stretched into a year.
I heard that Daisuke Kato felt lucky
to be shooting a film in the middle of summer
and wearing very light clothing, which meant very little sweating.
Then there they were, shooting in February.
Mifune suffered the most.
- He was nearly naked. - That's right.
And in the February cold,
the ground was wet for the battle scene, so the actors' feet were in this cold mud.
They had to run around wearing straw sandals,
and the sandals absorbed water.
Mifune said the sandals became unbelievably cold.
It's amazing he endured all that.
He told me, "I could do it because I was young, but I couldn't anymore."
Kurosawa himself said,
"I couldn't do that again even if you begged me to."
Kikuchiyo, what are you up to?
I can't kill five with just one blade.
Then, heavy snow fell right before the shooting of the battle scene,
and the snow had to be watered down to melt it.
When water saturates the ground, you get mud,
a heavy, sticky kind of mud. - Slushy and squishy.
I noticed that Kurosawa looked very happy seeing the muddy ground.
I thought, "You don't have to act in this muck."
The person in charge of the rain effect
was the man who can make rain with one thumb,
props master Koichi Hamamura, known as Hama-chan.
When shooting on an open set, wind becomes a factor.
It can cause the simulated rain to slant a little.
Then Kurosawa would complain that there was too much mist.
I dreaded that the most.
How many water trucks did you use?
I think about seven regular-size ones.
Before shooting began, the ground had turned to mud.
It wasn't just humans who had to endure difficulties.
The horses had it hard too. They were were spread across different locations,
and we had to use makeup on them for continuity.
Village scenes were shot in five different locations.
Transporting horses posed a challenge, since each location had its own horses.
So Hamamura applied makeup to the horses to simulate the white markings.
The supposedly same horse could look different from one location to another.
That's right. So I'd paint the muzzle white.
But the rain would wash off the makeup.
With the makeup gone, the horse would look different.
Sometimes that happened.
The battle scene in the rain was conceived
as a result of Kurosawa's ambition to create something unachievable
by Hollywood's rain machines in its dry climate.
Mifune was wearing armor, and it was raining,
so when he moved like this, his armor reflected the light.
On occasion, when horses faced the camera,
light had to be captured in their eyes too.
I think Kurosawa played up those effects.
How did you record sounds back then? ICHIRO MINAWA - SOUND EFFECTS
We only had four tracks to work with.
Dialogue would take up one track.
Dialogue called "FD" would take up another.
Then we'd only have two tracks left. - What is FD?
FD is overlapping dialogue -
Overlapping dialogue of many people in the background.
We'd need one track for that, because it needs to match the action.
So we'd be left with only two tracks to record all other sound effects.
For Seven Samurai, we did things that sound stupid now.
When someone falls from a horse to the wet ground,
we'd need a sloshing sound.
If one track was dedicated to that, then we couldn't record other sounds.
So we decided to employ foley effects.
In the sound recording room, we had a tub set up.
It was about three feet by six feet and about this tall,
made of wood.
We filled the bottom with a muddy mixture.
We had an assistant in the tub stomping his feet
in sync to the falling action.
It was winter when we were recording these sound effects.
When the timing was perfect, the foley sound wasn't good.
And when the foley went well, the timing was off.
So the assistant had to make repeated efforts,
and as he got frustrated, he splashed a lot of mud on the screen.
We were soundly scolded for the mess later.
Also, for the sound of a horse's whinny,
you can't use a relaxed whinny like this for battle scenes.
I wanted something that sounded nervous like this.
So we separated the male horses from the female horses for a while
so that when they were brought together, they'd be in heat,
and the male horses neighed like this, so I made a lot of recordings of that.
I used a great deal of the recordings.
So what you hear in the battle scene are not the actual neighs,
but those uttered by male horses toward the females.
I've used those recordings for later films such as Kagemusha
when a battle scene required them.
For which film did you make them initially?
I think it was for Seven Samurai.
Using multiple cameras to shoot scenes that could not be reshot
is called a multicamera setup.
Considered the key element that gives Kurosawa's films their dynamic quality,
the technique was an innovation created on this film.
We did it!
In the battle scene,
when men on horses and farmers armed with bamboo spears
are mixed together in the confusion of battle,
you'd come up with shots that are unimaginable.
I couldn't believe no one actually died shooting that scene.
When vivid shots captured by three cameras
were connected as sequential action,
the result was a scene infused with the utmost intensity and speed.
We'd go through the motions for test shots.
You'd do that several times for a Kurosawa film.
Eventually he'd say, "Cut! Now let's do a real take."
Well, our feet got stuck in the mud, and we couldn't move.
But once the take began, everyone ran around like lightning.
I guess some inner reserve came through.
Fighting to maintain their balance, actors ran all around...
and Kurosawa himself stood in the mud as he watched them.
Water turned to mud, but it quickly froze.
So it was that cold.
Yes, but he stood in it the whole time.
His feet got frostbitten, and some of his toenails decayed.
Lasting for almost six minutes,
the ferocious battle scene in the rain finally comes to an end.
Once more we survive.
A source of legends and legacy,
the filming of Seven Samurai wrapped on March 18, 1954.
I feel like the first era in cinema has ended,
and I think it ended with Kurosawa's death.
Now, as the second era begins,
it seems to me that it'll be some time before it begins to blossom.
I'm talking about quality movies, not only in Japan but all over the world.
Kurosawa's death may have had that great an impact.
Although 100 years have passed since the birth of cinema,
there was no one like Kurosawa before him,
and there's no one that comes close to Kurosawa after him either.
Seven Samurai is one of the most representative films of the 20th century.
The joy and thrill of cinema that it embodies
will never cease to impress us.