To have a good time the 70th anniversary of Akira Kurosawa's black-and-white epic Seven Samurai returns to theaters with a brand new 4K restoration.
Arguably the crowning achievement of one of many world's most lauded filmmakers, the movie depicts a small 16th-century village below menace from bandits. To guard themselves from the invaders, the farmers go seeking the ronin – masterless samurai for rent – who can beat back the robbers and hold the village protected.
One of many movie's co-writers, Shinobu Hashimoto, discovered the meeting course of Seven Samurai so exhausting that he was admitted to a hospital. “I believed I'd by no means have the ability to write something this good once more,” he mentioned. “Alternatively, I believed since I've been writing, it's been so troublesome and I've survived, I may write something.”
It was additionally a particularly costly movie, particularly for the 1950s, with an estimated price range of $150,000 to $200,000—effectively above the $70,000 common for Japanese movies of that period. Throughout filming, Kurosawa was compelled to halt manufacturing after realizing he had solely gone via his financing a 3rd of the way in which via the shoot. The whole shoot took nearly a 12 months.
But, Seven Samurai it proved its value, turning into a field workplace hit in Japan and, within the 70 years since its launch, now thought-about one of many biggest movies of all time.
The 4K restoration debuted on the Cannes Movie Pageant earlier this 12 months. In New York, the movie opens on the Movie Discussion board on July 5; in Los Angeles, the premiere will happen on July 7 on the Egyptian Theatre, with a gap on the Laemmle Royal on July 12.