Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" Well Remade in 4K

You folks know Akira Kurosawa and his award-winning "Rashomon" but how about "Seven Samurai"? What about John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven"? The latter, in fact, was a western adaptation of the former, as some of you might recall. I'm Nathan Shiga to tell you an episode about the "Seven Samurai".

"Seven Samurai" was Kurosawa's maiden samurai film. He left a note on how he had first conceived a film on a single day of the life of a samurai and expanded it to that of a group of samurai defending farmers. The note says Kurosawa had first had six samurai in mind and that he created the seventh samurai with Toshiro Mifune in mind and let him gave a freehand to improvise in his performance. The film turned out quite a success grossing 268 million yen in the first year of release and eventually Japan's third highest-grossing film, of 1954.

Sorry for digression -.

Today's episode has to do with a major remaking operation done on the 60-year-old film just completed - all 300 thousand frames digitalized in 4K. A preview was given on February 23, in Chofu, Tokyo. The operation took a good six months to remove every minute stain.

The outcome is an entirely new "Seven Samurai", the whitish parts due to aging fully regained natural blackish shades to restore the original lively black-and-white "color". Yoshinori Kato of the Tokyo Laboratory comments:

"It's a popular film run more than often and has aged fast. I think we've done a good job restoring its original quality.

Takashi Koizumi, assistant director under Kurosawa, said:

"The images don't flicker anymore and regained lustre and freshness. I'm sure he (Kurosawa) and his staff would be delighted if they saw it."

Shinji Kaitani of the Cinema Theatrical Culture Society remarks:

"They've done a fabulous work restoring the masterpiece。Shading has revived beautifully, so well to remind the original showing 40 years ago. I'm sure this will remind many that here we have a masterpiece Japan can be proud of."

The restored "Seven Samurai" will show nationwide in October. Don't you miss it, folks, when it visits your town.