![]() ![]() Nevertheless, if we are to go with Richie’s claim, and that it was only a decade later that critics began to “speak in measured terms of this ‘epoch-making masterpiece’”, then we might attribute a large part of its towering status to its overseas reception. Richie’s assertion that the film met with a muted critical response is less easy to support, given that Japan’s most respected film journal, Kinema Junpo, ranked it as third best of the year in its annual critics poll. Indeed, the list features only one title by Kurosawa (and moreover the only Toho production): The Hidden Fortress (1958), positioned at number nine. Seven Samurai is not even listed among the top 20 domestic earners of its decade, undoubtedly a victim of its colossal runtime, twice that of the average for a Japanese film of its era. However, within a few years, its impact in Japan had waned, and even its legendary budget had been eclipsed by Shintoho’s nationalistic war epic Emperor Meiji and the Great Russo-Japanese War (1957), which remained the highest-grossing domestic film of the postwar period up until 1964. Indeed, it was Toho’s biggest hit of the year, grossing 268 million Yen (approximately $744,500) within its first 12 months, and was the second highest domestic earner of 1954, positioned behind Shochiku’s release of the third part of Hideo Oba’s romantic saga What Is Your Name? ![]() ![]() Richie states that the film was a significant commercial success upon its original release. That is what I really hate about them - they are only an extended form of advertising.” Kurosawa also pointed out that the expenditure on Seven Samurai was but a fraction of the means available to directors in the west, claiming that Japanese films were made too cheaply. The troubled year-long location shoot was the stuff of legend before the film had even opened, and Kurosawa’s dictatorial approach towards his cast and crew on set and his stance towards his employers, Toho, back in Tokyo, saw him drawing considerable flak from critics.ĭonald Richie, in his book The Films of Akira Kurosawa (published in 1965) reported the director’s exasperated response to such attacks: “You try to give a film a little pictorial scope and the journalists jump on you for spending too much money. When Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai premiered in Japan 60 years ago on 26 April 1954, it was the most expensive domestic production ever, costing 125 million Yen (approximately $350,000), almost five times the then 26 million Yen ($63,000) average for a typical Japanese studio picture. ![]()
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