Seven Samurai’s 4K restoration is headed to theaters

To rejoice its seventieth anniversary, Akira Kurosawa’s black-and-white epic Seven Samurai is coming again 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 village within the sixteenth century that’s threatened by bandits. To guard themselves from the invaders, the farmers go looking for ronin — master-less samurai for rent — who can beat back the marauders and maintain the village protected.

One of many movie’s co-writers, Shinobu Hashimoto, discovered the method of placing collectively Seven Samurai so exhausting that he checked himself right into a hospital. “I assumed I’d by no means be capable to write something pretty much as good ever once more,” he mentioned. “Alternatively, I assumed since writing it was so tough, and I survived, I may write something.”

It was additionally a tremendously costly movie, particularly for the Nineteen Fifties, with a funds estimated between $150,000 and $200,000 — far above the $70,000 common of Japanese movies of that period. Throughout filming, Kurosawa needed to cease manufacturing after he realized he had run via his funding solely a 3rd of the way in which via the shoot. All the shoot lasted practically a yr.

Nonetheless, Seven Samurai proved effectively value it, changing into a field workplace success in Japan and, within the 70 years since its launch, now thought of one of many best movies of all time.

The 4K restoration debuted on the Cannes Movie Pageant earlier this yr. In New York, the film opens at Movie Discussion board on July fifth; in Los Angeles, the premiere might be on July seventh on the Egyptian Theatre, with a gap at Laemmle Royal to comply with on July twelfth.