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Commence drooling, everybody.

Inarguably one of the tent poles of cinema achievement ever, Akira Kurosawa’s irreplaceable Seven Samurai gets a second release from Criterion on DVD, and it’s nothing short of a watershed. Just try not to turn into Gollum from Lord of the Rings while staring at this beautiful 3-disc edition (it is, indeed, precious).

Criterion’s late- ‘90s release of Seven Samurai was fine. It didn’t contain a deliciously attended-to transfer, but aside from that, it was great having the film on the Criterion shelf. But this triple- whammy box set is the kind of thing we have wet dreams about. Beautiful packaging, a booklet featuring essays and tributes from all sorts of luminaries, a plethora of bonuses – I can’t stop sweating just thinking about it.

And actually watching it? Oh, man. When this writer stayed up until four in the morning watching this new DVD last night, it felt like I was watching it for the first time, and I must have seen this thing ten times. Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, and five fellow players portray seven Samurai hired to protect a small village in 16th century Japan; it truly is the thing of cinema legend. [And inspired such entertaining films as The Magnificent Seven. - Ed.] If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor.

Seven Samurai is a brilliant, epic, majestic masterpiece; that much is certain. But should you upgrade? I bought the Criterion disc when it was first released in 1998, when all it contained was a commentary by film historian Michael Jeck (it’s included on this 3-disc set, as well), a trailer (also here), and a restoration demonstration. It turns out that the 1998 disc was a hard-to-find collector’s item for a while. And it turns out that Toho (the company that licensed the film to Criterion) didn’t like footage from the film being excerpted out of context. So Criterion was forced to re-release the film in 1999 sans the restoration showcase.

Then there was that beautiful Four Samurai Classics box set that Criterion released, which includes Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo and Sanjuro. That set contains the same Seven Samurai disc released in 1999. (As a Kurosawa super-freak, I had to buy the box set.) The truth of the matter is that this new release of the film is a glacier, where any previous edition was merely ice cube. Let’s get to the details.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

I wish I could insert a picture of myself shedding tears of joy at this moment. It may not be reference-quality perfect, but I’ll be damned if this full-frame transfer isn’t marvelous. From this release’s booklet:

“Seven Samurai is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The picture has been slightly window-boxed to ensure that the maximum image is visible on all monitors. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. The original negative of the film is no longer available, so a new duplicate negative was created with wet gate processing from the original fine-grain master positive. This new high-definition digital transfer was created in 2k resolution on a Spirit Datacine from the new dupe negative. For the extensive restoration of Seven Samurai for this release, several different digital hardware and software solutions were utilized for flicker, instability, dirt, scratches and grain management including: daVinci’s Revival, Discreet’s Fire, Digital Vision’s ASCIII Advanced Scratch and Dirt Concealer, and MTI’s Digital Restoration System. To maintain optimal image quality through the compression process, the picture on this dual-layer DVD-9 was encoded at the highest-possible bit rate for the quantity of material included.”

Does the film still manifest its age? Yes. There’s a certain degree of grain and smudge that simply can’t be avoided. But that being said, it’s doubtful that the film could possibly look much better than this. Exceptional.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Again from the DVD’s booklet:

“The new 4.0 mix was created from original optical track recordings, original stereo music masters, and original production sound effects masters. The original monaural soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from on optical soundtrack print. Audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on surround sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound.” 

In comparison to the previous release of the film, I couldn’t discern all that much upgrade in the mono mix, but the Dolby Surround mix – a rare feat for Criterion, a company that typically keeps the mixes in the format with which the movies were originally released – is pretty damned nice. It’s a little over-aggressive in some parts – battle scenes are definitely boomy and impressive, but simpler scenes play pretty thinly – so even though it’s nice to have a bit of an upgrade, I’d still recommend staying with the tried-and-true mono.

Also included are English Subtitles.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Michael Jeck’s screen-specific audio commentary is culled from the previous release of the film; it’s informative, although a bit dull in parts. But the new commentary by David Desser, Joan Mellen, Stephen Prince, Tony Kayns, and Donald Richie is a classic. Yes, much of Jeck’s information is dissected with more astute perspective, so things are sometimes a bit redundant, but with all five of these scholars offering such insightful and mesmerizing thoughts on the film, you really can’t lose. Like a great film class, it entrances as much as it illuminates. A great commentary track.

The first disc also comes with three trailers and a teaser trailer as well as a huge still gallery. The second disc comes with a documentary, the newest installment of It Is Wonderful To Create, which follows Kurosawa as he puts his masterful Seven Samurai together.

Disc three houses a fascinating – but somewhat informationally redundant - interview between Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima from the Director’s Guild of Japan in 1993. You’ll also find a wonderful documentary entitled Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences, a wonderfully entertaining look at the films that have utilized (and sometimes blatantly exploited) the rhetoric of Kurosawa’s masterwork.

The set’s included booklet houses a ton of fascinating articles from Kenneth Turan, Peter Cowie, Phili Kemp, Peggy Chiao, Alain Silver, and Stuart Galbraith IV, as well as tributes from Arthur Penn and Sidney Lumet, and even an autobiographical look back from Toshiro Mifune himself.

Final Thoughts