I find that Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (Shichinin no Samurai) is one of those movies you hear about and hear about and then skip because you think it might be pretentious. Then you finally sit down one day and watch it...
...and your life changes forever.
That's because this movie rocks. It has action, drama, and beautiful cinematography, and it remains gripping throughout its 3.5-hour runtime.
I can't really say enough about how special a movie it is and also how it became the blueprint for modern ensemble cinema.
Kurosawa pioneered tropes we take for granted today, like the assembling-the-team montage, the stoic expert leader, training the inexperienced villagers, and multi-camera telephoto action sequences.
Today, I want to look at all the movies that were directly influenced by or remade this 1954 classic and discuss how its influence has spread throughout the entire man-on-a-mission genre.
Let's dive in.
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Direct Remakes & Western Adaptations
These are movies that just took the plot of Seven Samurai and made it their own. It's called pastiche or homage, and I think the best writers steal!
- The Magnificent Seven (1960 & 2016): The most famous direct beat-for-beat translation; it's basically the same movie in the Old West. Ah, and there are no swords. John Sturges traded ronin in feudal Japan for gunfighters and gave us an iconic Elmer Bernstein score plus stars like Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. The remake with Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington is fun, but nothing beats the original.
- Battle Beyond the Stars (1980): This was a low-budget affair produced by Roger Corman. His cult sci-fi flick takes the plot into outer space, where a young farmer travels the galaxy recruiting mercenary warriors to save his planet from an evil tyrant. This was more of his Star Wars, which we will get to later.
- A Bug’s Life (1998): I think about this version all the time, as I like playing it for my son. It's his intro to Kurosawa, whether he knows it or not. Pixar lifted the narrative and added a lot more jokes. We follow Flik, an ant who leaves his colony to recruit tough warrior bugs to fight off greedy grasshoppers, only to accidentally bring home a band of circus performers instead.
- Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire (2023): Zack Snyder's space opera follows a soldier assembling fighters from across the galaxy to defend a farming village from a ruthless imperial force.
Ensemble Team-Building & Heist Tropes
Now, one thing is that Seven Samurai became a famous movie early on, so filmmakers saw it and then riffed on it for generations. A lot of the men-on-a-mission movies were at least loosely inspired by it, whether they were direct remakes or not.
- The Dirty Dozen (1967): This took Kurosawa’s "assembling specialists" motif and dialed up the anti-hero element, and set it in WWII.
- Ocean's Eleven (2001): While a heist movie, Steven Soderbergh’s structure mirrors Kurosawa's recruit-the-experts sequence.
- The Avengers (2012) & The Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): I think most modern superhero team-up movies rely heavily on the dynamic Kurosawa established. These are the same big personalities checking egos for one cause.
'Seven Samura' Credit: Janus Films
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Offshoots
I also want to highlight a few Star Wars stories, which Lucas is open about loving Kurosawa. You can see it in the universe over and over.
- Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977): George Lucas famously cited Kurosawa as his biggest influence for this film. He borrowed heavily from The Hidden Fortress for the droids and story. But the foundational archetype of Jedi master and mercenary hero protecting the innocent traces straight back to the samurai in our movie.
- The Mandalorian (Season 1, Episode 4 - "Sanctuary"): Mando and Cara Dune help a rural village of Krill farmers build defenses and train to fight off AT-ST-backed raiders. I also think Mando and Grogu are Lone Wolf and Cub homages, which is a post for a different day.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Season 2, Episode 17 - "Bounty Hunters"): This episode was dedicated directly to Kurosawa's memory; it follows Jedi helping farmers hire bounty hunters to protect their crops from pirates.
Summing It All Up
These films are just the tip of the iceberg, but I encourage you to seek out the original and spend some time with Kurosawa in general. There's so much inspiration to be had.
And outside of that, you can always just take his story beats and make them your own, as all these other movies did.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
