The Seven Samurai (PG)

Akira Kurosawa's three-hour, black-and-white masterpiece. Set in 16th-century Japan, The Seven Samurai follows a bunch of ronin (masterless samurai) in their bid to defend a village from bandits. Kurosawa deflates the myth of the noble samurai without actually debunking it, and stages some great action sequences.

DVD Extras:

Full-screen, instant scene access, mono soundtrack.Despite enhancing our understanding of the movie, Kemp's commentary is as dry as the purely text-based menus are boring. And despite the resources available to the British Film Institute, there are no other extras. DVD is a great opportunity for the BFI to broaden the audience for classic world cinema. To achieve that, though, it'll have to adopt a less stuffy, slightly more populist approach to future releases.

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