Okay, call me an ignorant, uncultured, short-attention-span Yank if you wish, but I found this movie drawn-out and difficult to follow. It was indeed masterful storytelling with great character development, but the movie seemed to take quite a long time to get going, and when it did it was not the cinematic juggernaut I was expecting. Perhaps my expectations were too high? I don't think so. As of this writing Seven Samurai is at #6 in the all-time greatest movies list (and the only foreign-born film in the top 20), so I've obviously missed something big.
This was by no means a bad movie; it was in fact a very good movie. However, all the really excellent movies I've seen have one thing in common - they carry you away with them. You get so involved with the story and characters that you feel like you know them personally. I did not get that here. Instead I kept trying to figure out what was going on, and why people were dramatically wailing and rolling on the ground in reaction to situations that didn't seem to warrant it. Is there perhaps a cultural difference that I'm not linking into? Am I over-analyzing it? I fully expected to walk away from this film wide-eyed and and muttering 'Wow. Just .wow' over and over (as I have with so many other films on IMDb's top 100), but instead I'm left to ponder why I seem to be the only one who's not getting it. I'd watch it again, but 3-1/2 hours is a long time.
This was by no means a bad movie; it was in fact a very good movie. However, all the really excellent movies I've seen have one thing in common - they carry you away with them. You get so involved with the story and characters that you feel like you know them personally. I did not get that here. Instead I kept trying to figure out what was going on, and why people were dramatically wailing and rolling on the ground in reaction to situations that didn't seem to warrant it. Is there perhaps a cultural difference that I'm not linking into? Am I over-analyzing it? I fully expected to walk away from this film wide-eyed and and muttering 'Wow. Just .wow' over and over (as I have with so many other films on IMDb's top 100), but instead I'm left to ponder why I seem to be the only one who's not getting it. I'd watch it again, but 3-1/2 hours is a long time.