Seven Samurai and lessons from Sun Tzu's 'Art of War' review and analysis

Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese Samurai epic co-written by Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni, and directed by Akira Kurosawa. 

The film takes place during the Sengoku Period of Japanese history and follows 7 masterless samurai--or ronin as they are called--who are hired for the price of 3 meals a day by farmers to defend their harvest from bandits. The film stars Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Inaba, Daisuke Katō, Seiji Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, and Isao Kimura. At 207 minutes, Seven Samurai is Akira Kurosawa’s longest and arguably best film, and serves as the template for team films such as The Magnificent Seven and Marvel’s Avengers. The film was nominated for 2 Academy Awards in 1957 for Best Art Design and Best Costume Design. Major critics such as Roger Ebert and polls such as Sight and Sound rank Seven Samurai among the greatest films ever made. In this presentation, I will cover the film’s plot, its themes, and offer my personal thoughts at the end.

Plot

Seven Samurai is set in Japan in the early 16th century, a period of uncertainty plagued by debt, high taxes, civil wars, and now bandits, a group of which on a high hill look down upon a farming village lying prone, plump, juicy, and almost ripe. But not yet, not until the harvest, only then will they return to steal the hard-earned fruit of the farmers' labor.

Down in the village, the farmers are fearful and full of despair. There are disagreements about whether they should avoid bloodshed and surrender their crops to the bandits or whether they should fashion their bamboo poles into spears and fight the bandits. The farmers go to see the village elder who tells them to fight. Of all the villages looted and burned, those that survived had 1 thing in common: samurai. But the farmers have no money to pay for proud samurai to which the elder tells them to hire hungry samurai who will work for 3 meals a day. Even a bear, the elder tells them, will come out of the forest when he gets hungry.

Four farmers, Rikichi, Yohei, Manzo, and Mosuke go to the nearest town to find four samurai. But after 10 days and no samurai, things seem hopeless until the 4 farmers come upon a crowd surrounding a priest and a samurai. The samurai takes out a knife and cuts off his topknot. The samurai then hands a sharp razor to the priest who uses the razor to shave the hair off the samurai’s head. Kimbei, the samurai, then puts on the tattered robe of a priest. He then asks the villagers for 2 rice balls to go inside of a barn to rescue a child from a thief. Farmers surround the barn and all of them have weapons; but they are afraid. The front door is open and Kimbei offers the thief a rice ball in exchange for the child. The thief agrees. Kimbei tosses a rice ball to the thief and rushes in behind it. Moments later, the thief stumbles out of the barn, falls to the ground, and dies. Kimbei comes out of the barn with the boy and drops his bloodstained sword. Kimbei walks away; no one thanks him. A young samurai named Katsushiro bows to Kimbei asking to be his disciple. The farmers hire their 1st Samurai.

Kimbei recruits 6 more samurai to work for 3 meals a day and they return to the village. Kimbei looks around in horror; the village is wide open and easily accessible from every direction. He and his fellow samurai get to work and over time the village and farmers become stronger, fortified walls are erected, bridges are torn down, and crops are gathered. The harvest passes and soon the fear of the bandits is replaced by dancing, forgetfulness, and ingratitude. With the reaping all done, the farmers think that the bandits have gone away. But Kimbei knows that peace is the most dangerous season of all.

Themes

Honor is at the center of Seven Samurai. At the beginning of this film, a thief holds a child hostage inside of a barn surrounded by a crowd of armed villagers who feel helpless. A samurai named Kimbei cuts off his topknot, the very feature that identifies him as a samurai; he then hands a sharp razor to a priest to shave off his hair. Kimbei then dresses himself in the robe of a monk and asks for 2 rice balls to go into the barn and save the child.

Proverbs 18:12,
“Humility comes before honor.”

Kimbei tosses the rice balls to the thief and rushes into the barn by himself. Moments later, the thief stumbles out of the barn and falls to the ground, dead. How was Kimbei able to do what the crowd of people outside the shack couldn’t do? 1) he cut off his topknot to hide the fact that he was a samurai; 2) he assumes the non-threatening disguise of a priest to gain the thief’s trust; 3) he has a priest to cut off all of his hair with a razor, a gesture incorporating 2 virtues: sacrifice and humility; 4) he then tosses the rice balls the villagers gave him to the thief when the villagers thought that the rice balls were for him; and finally, Kimbei rushes into the barn, subdues the thief, and saves the child--all by himself--a feat of courage that so impresses a young samurai named Katsushiro to ask to be his disciple.

Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince.’ What A Prince Must Do To Be Esteemed:
“Nothing wins so much esteem for a prince as embarking on great enterprises and giving rare proofs of his ability.”

Honor seeks no reward but is, within itself, a reward. A farmer named Rikichi volunteers to go into the bandits' camp and steal their guns. Rikichi is eager to win honor to himself but he is also inexperienced and stands a good chance at failing. Kyuzo--a samurai of proven abilities--snatches this opportunity away from Rikichi and goes solo into the bandit’s camp, steals one of their guns, and gets himself 2 kills in the process. Kyuzo’s courage and skill--as Kimbei’s courage and skill in rescuing the child from the thief--wins praise and admiration, especially from Katsushiro.

Kikuchyo is jealous of Katsushiro’s admiration for Kyuzo and evens the score by sneaking into the bandits’ camp and stealing himself a gun, too. But instead of winning merit, Kimbei reprimands him. Kikuchyo’s deed could have costed them a valuable samurai and the deed was also self serving and not for the greater good of the whole.

Proverbs 25:27,
“For men to search their own glory is not glory.”

Also,

Art of War Chapter 8. Variation in Tactics:
“In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign, collects his army and concentrates his forces.”

The sovereign is the head. Tactical decisions should be rational. Also, Kikuchyo’s motivation for going into the bandit’s camp is to take glory from another samurai, as he did by dancing over the dead thief that Kimbei killed; or like the villagers stealing the armor off of slain samurai; or like old man Yohei trying on samurai armor that is too big for him. But this act on Kikuchyo’s part only attests to the high value of honor and the price the samurai are willing to pay for it.

The samurai help the farmers to discover honor within themselves. Kikuchyo teaches the farmers how to fight with swords and form battle units; Heihachi provokes Rikichi to work harder in the fields by questioning his manhood. At the beginning of the film, the villagers felt afraid and helpless even though they outnumbered their enemies--the thief that held the child at knife point and the bandits. Back then, every option was on the table, from simply walking away from their harvest and letting the bandits take it to even committing suicide. In fact, the farmers had plenty of rice, salt, beans, and saki stored away but they were poor because they had no honor, they planted and sowed but had no courage to defend what was theirs.

Sowing and reaping

Matt. 13:24--29,
“Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: 25But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 26But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 27So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? 28He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.”

The weeds are not just the bandits that appear at harvest but other thieves such as laziness, disunity, and forgetfulness. There are weeds in the human spirit that come up in seasons of trouble as well as seasons of peace and prosperity.

Laziness

To prepare for the bandits’ return, Kimbei and Gorobei inspect the village to secure all the weak points. The weakest point of the perimeter is the eastern border. Here, they find Kikuchyo stretched out, his head and feet propped up, snoring away, with his sword sticking out of a pile of logs. Kimbei takes Kikuchyo’s sword and, from a hiding spot, tosses a stone in the water to wake Kikuchyo up. Kimbei comes out of hiding and gives Kikuchyo his sword and a warning: if he had been the enemy, Kikuchyo would have been dead.

Matthew 24:43,
“But know this, that if the householder had known in what watch the thief comes, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken into.”
Also,
Art of War Chapter 8. Variation of Tactics:
“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”

Disunity

Kimbei and Gorobei walk the perimeter of the village and discover another weakness; three isolated homes outside the village.

Art Of War Chapter 8. Variation in Tactics:
“In country where high roads intersect, join hands with your allies. Do not linger in dangerously isolated positions.”

Art Of War Chapter 1. Laying Plans:
“If his forces are united, separate them.”

Once the bandits come for the harvest, whoever lived in those three homes would be isolated. Kimbei lays down the rules: all work shall be done in formation; harvesting will be done together; no one shall work by himself; everyone will camp together, unit by unit; nobody shall do anything by himself. Kimbei even reprimands a fellow samurai--Kikuchyo--for leaving the village to go into the enemy camp by himself. Despite the valuable intel he acquired, Kikuchyo’s motive for going into the bandits’ camp was selfish. And as for the homes outside the village on the other side of the marshes, Kimbei orders them to be evacuated. Twenty homes in the village can’t be risked for the 3 homes outside the village.

Matthew 5:30,
"If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.”

Kikuchyo, as pointed out earlier, violates Kimbei’s order by going into the bandit’s camp by himself. But even so, Kikuchyo acquires valuable intelligence on the enemy’s condition. Attrition through a series of unsuccessful attacks has taken its toll on the bandits who are not only worn out from the clashes with the samurais and villagers but also hungry. The bandits’ predicament comes from violating 2 rules from the Art of War:

Chapter 6. Weak Points and Strong:
“You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.”

Also,

Chapter 3. Attack By Stratagem:
“The rule is not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets, movable shelters, and various implements of war, will take up three whole months; and the piling up of mounds over against the walls will take three months more.
The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege.”

Forgetfulness

Sun Tzu realized that moods are like seasons and change over time. At the very beginning of the film, the fear of the bandits’ attack intensifies leading up to harvest; however, after the villagers gather their harvest with no trouble, the fear dissipates. Gorobei and Kimbei take in a scene of villagers standing around laughing and acting a fool without a care in the world, more at ease and confident in the peace following the bandits’ threat to take their harvest. An experienced samurai, Gorobei observes the villagers’ general attitude with disapproval. He and Kimbei knows that peaceful conditions are the most dangerous times of all.

Art of War Chapter 7. Maneuvering:
“Now a soldier's spirit is keenest in the morning; by noonday it has begun to flag; and in the evening, his mind is bent only on returning to camp.”

Art of War Chapter 1. Laying Plans:
“When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away.”

The delay in the bandits’ attack makes the villagers confident, forgetful, and ungrateful.

Finding samurai to fight and put their lives on the line for only 3 meals a day is no easy task for the villagers. An offended samurai draws his sword on Rikichi for even asking. Finding not one but seven samurai to fight and put their lives on the line for 3 meals a day is miraculous and at first the villagers can’t believe their luck. Over the course of time, the villagers become confident, forgetful, and ungrateful: they tolerate the samurai as long as they are threatened by the bandits. But as soon as the bandits are all dead, the villagers forget all about the samurais that helped them. Even Shino gives Katsushiro the cold shoulder after the bandits are dead and the crops are harvested.

Machiavelli. The Prince. Concerning Cruelty: Whether It Is Better To Be Loved Than to Be Feared, Or The Reverse:
“For this can be said about the generality of men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, dissembling, anxious to flee danger, and covetous of gain. So long as you promote their advantage, they are all yours.”

Wrap

Akira Kurosawa had originally planned to make the film about 6 samurai but decided to add a 7th samurai, Kikuchyo, whose eccentric personality offsets the personalities of the other 6 samurai who are all serious. Toshiro Mifune--who plays Kikuchyo--was to play Kyuzo before Kurosawa made him the 7th samurai. Seeing Mifune as a wild-man in this role brings to mind his role as Musashi Miyamoto in Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai trilogy. Mifune’s role in Seven Samurai also brings to mind his role as the bandit, Tajōmaru, in Kurosawa’s 1950 film Rashomon. Of all Kurosawa’s films, Seven Samurai is among my favorites for a number of reasons starting with the cinematography by longtime collaborator Asakazu Naka. Each scene is full of so much information and wisdom; nothing the camera sees is wasted. Poetry is in every shot. The music by Fumio Hayasaka is also great and matches the scenes well.

It doesn’t take long watching Seven Samurai to get the sense that Kurosawa’s film is universal and applies to many aspects of life. The film runs almost 31/2 hours but it feels an hour shorter.

Seven Samurai is an old film but you can see its influence on many of today’s films like Star Wars, The Magnificent Seven, and The Avengers. This masterpiece is why I consider Kurosawa 1 of the best directors ever.