I love old movies, but I don't get to see many as I'd like to. Recently I did got to see the classic Seven Samurai. The local Blockbuster had it (amazing in a way) so I snapped it up. It was excellent, if a tad long. I've been a fan of Akira Kurosawa ever since I saw RAN and this was certainly one of his masterpieces.
The movie tells the story of a peasant village terrorized by bandits. They seek help from, well, seven samurai, who defend the village and teach them to defend themselves. The character development of each samurai character is the real strength of the film, though there are some great action sequences as well.
This weekend, I stumbled upon The Magnificent Seven on TCM. This is Seven Samurai done as a western. It was fascinating to see the adaptation of the original to the western genre - Mexican farmers rather than Japanese peasants, and, of course, gun slingers rather than samuarai. It's much more condensed as well. Not a bad thing, since I doubt it would have held up for 3+ hours.
If you haven't seen either, see Kurosawa's work first, then the American version.
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