Seven samurai
(DVD)

Booklet features essays by Kenneth Turan, Peter Cowie, Philip Kemp, Peggy Chiao, Alain Silver, and Stuart Galbraith IV; tributes from Arthur Penn and Sidney Lumet; and a reminiscence by Toshiro Mifune.

Edition from container and disc label.

Originally released as a motion picture in 1954.

Series numbering from container spine.

Special features: Disc 1: Two audio commentaries--one by film scholars David Desser, Joan Mellen, Stephen Prince, Tony Rayns, and Donald Richie, and one by Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck; theatrical trailers and teaser; gallery of rare posters and behind-the-scenes and production stills ; Disc 2: A 50-minute documentary on the making of 'Seven samurai', created as part of the "Toho masterworks" series "Akira Kurosawa : it is wonderful to create" ; Disc 3: "My life in cinema", a two-hour video conversation between Akira Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima from 1993, produced by the Directors Guild of Japan; "'Seven samurai': origins and influences", a new documentary looking at the samurai traditions and films that impacted Kurosawa's masterpiece.

Title and credits from English subtitles, transliterated from the Japanese.

Cinematography, Asakazu Nakai ; music, Fumio Hayasaka ; art direction, Takashi Matsuyama.

Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima, Yukiko Shimazaki, Kamatari Fujiwara, Daisuke Kato, Isao Kimura, Minoru Chiaki, Seiji Miyaguchi, Yoshio Kosugi, Bokuzen Hidari, Yoshio Inaba, Yoshio Tsuchiya.

Tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire seven out-of-work warriors to protect them from invading bandits.

DVD; region 1; full screen presentation (1.33:1 aspect); Dolby Digital mono, Dolby Digital surround; NTSC; restored high-definition digital transfer.

Soundtrack: Japanese; with optional English subtitles.