Another element of interest was that the 7 were not the 1 with possible 'side-kick', plus the charisma to bring in some secondary helpers, when the climactic action occurred. Yul's character was a central character, but all of the 7 had their moment. Part of the action was holding the coalition together for long enough to accomplish anything.

Seven Samurai - I saw it for the first time when I was 25, and I didn't even make the connection to the Magnificent Seven. Somebody had to point that out to me some years later. All I knew was that it was a fascinating movie. Every scene carried the action. No wasted motion, no deus-ex-machina, no psychological anomalies.

Technically, the scenes in the woods and amongst the flowers were beautiful in a simple, natural way - didn't need Technicolor or hot-house perfection as enhancement. The samurai and peasants walking along the dusty trail, joking about life and each other - it sounded like me and my buddies walking up from baseball practice. The battle action where the bandits attack - the samurai are capable, but they're not stupid. When the bandits fire their muskets, everybody ducks for cover; when the bandits' horses press into the defenders, the action goes back and forth - thrust, block, fall back, parry, charge, thrust, etc. It looked a lot more real than the stoic white-hat shooting the guns out of the hands of the black-hats with no more protection than his white God.

Since then, I've seen the M7 twice more and 7S five times. I think that M7 is a reasonably good facsimile, but has no advantage over 7S. After the second time that I watched 7S, I became a Kurosawa fan (and, later, something of a Nihonphile). I've seen most of his works twice, but 7S is still my favorite.

paul spencer