Posted by: harlan
Seven Samurai - 09/05/06 02:25 PM
Sept. 5, 2006 (NY Times)
New Release
SEVEN SAMURAI
“Gojira” was not the only international hit to come from Japan’s Toho Studios in 1954. There was also the little matter of Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” the most expensive Japanese film produced up until that time and still one of the most stirring adventure stories in the movies. I don’t have much to add to the millions of words that have been spent on this film — the story of impoverished peasants who hire masterless samurai to protect their village against rampaging warlords — except to note that the new transfer from the Criterion Collection is a little miracle of digital technology: amazingly sharp and clear, free from any perceptible surface blemishes, the film has been luxuriously spread out over two detail-filled discs. A third disc includes a two-hour conversation between Kurosawa and the Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima from 1993, and a newly commissioned documentary on the film’s making. $49.95, not rated.
New Release
SEVEN SAMURAI
“Gojira” was not the only international hit to come from Japan’s Toho Studios in 1954. There was also the little matter of Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” the most expensive Japanese film produced up until that time and still one of the most stirring adventure stories in the movies. I don’t have much to add to the millions of words that have been spent on this film — the story of impoverished peasants who hire masterless samurai to protect their village against rampaging warlords — except to note that the new transfer from the Criterion Collection is a little miracle of digital technology: amazingly sharp and clear, free from any perceptible surface blemishes, the film has been luxuriously spread out over two detail-filled discs. A third disc includes a two-hour conversation between Kurosawa and the Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima from 1993, and a newly commissioned documentary on the film’s making. $49.95, not rated.