In "Seven Samurai", his most famous film, Akira Kurosawa takes a theme as familiar and standardized to Japanese audiences as the Western is to us and treats it with a freshness and a sensitiity to texture, tempo and psychological truth that gives new excitement and meaning to the traditional form. The theme has a ferocious simplicity. The inhabitants of a small village, yearly invaded by bandits, decide at last to do something to save themselves and their crops. They gather together a band of roaming samurai to defend them. With a wealth of detail and rich characterization Kurosawa unfolds the drama of that defence, the varying motives of the samurai - pity, devotion, adventurousness, or simply hunger - and the weaknes and ingratitude of the villagers. The film explores their inter-relationships with the insight and psychological depth which one has come to expect of Kurosawa.

This edition of "Seven Samurai" is based on Kurosawa's shooting script amplified into an accurate shot-by-shot description of the action and dialogue of the film.

Format: 20,5 x 14 cm, 224 pages, hardcover with book jacket. With many black-and-white photos.
Year of publication: 1970
Condition: Book jacket slightly rubbed. Otherwise an acceptable copy.