In Seven Samurai 1954 a whole society is on the verge of irrevocable change. Akira Kurosawas celebrated film regarded by many to be the major achievement of Japanese cinema is an epic that evokes the cultural upheaval brought on by the collapse of Japanese militarism in the 16th century but at the same time echoes also the sweeping cultural changes occurring in the aftermath of the American Occupation that followed Japans defeat in the Second World War. The plot is deceptively simple. A village