History Film / SevenSamurai

* BadassAdorable: Shichiroji is short, chubby, jovial and can skewer you like a fish with his BladeOnAStick.

* AndYourRewardIsEdible: The peasants can offer nothing more than food to the samurai they hire to defend them from bandits. Even this paltry reward means that the peasants don't have enough rice for themselves and must subsist on millet.

It has been remade, homaged, or flat out ripped off numerous times, in genres ranging from western (''Film/{{The Magnificent Seven|1960}}'') to science fiction (''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars'', ''Anime/SamuraiSeven'', ''[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS2E17BountyHunters Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'', ''[[Recap/TheMandalorianS1E4Chapter4Sanctuary Star Wars: The Mandalorian]]''), medieval adventure (''Film/TheThirteenthWarrior'') and, if you're willing to stretch a bit, anthropomorphized animals (''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'') and goofy comedies (''Film/ThreeAmigos'').

* WeaponOfChoice: Each samurai carries a katana, but some have personal weapons for their work, especially in the final battles.

* DontMakeMeDestroyYou: Kyuzou doesn't like killing people; he's also considered one of the finest swordsmen around. This is seen early in the movie when he is shown dueling; he begs his opponent not to challenge him with real swords, because the opponent would quite certainly die. [[spoiler:He does]].

* FirearmsAreRevolutionary: [[spoiler:The samurai who die are killed by]] firearms.

* EndOfAnAge: [[spoiler:The samurai who die are killed by]] firearms.

It has been remade, homaged, or flat out ripped off numerous times, in genres ranging from western (''Film/{{The Magnificent Seven|1960}}'') to science fiction (''Film/BattleBeyondTheStars'', ''Anime/SamuraiSeven'', ''[[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS2E17BountyHunters Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'') and, if you're willing to stretch a bit, anthropomorphized animals (''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'') and goofy comedies (''Film/ThreeAmigos'').

''Seven Samurai'' is a 1954 Japanese film directed by Creator/AkiraKurosawa under Creator/{{Toho}}; it starred his longtime collaborators Takashi Shimura and Creator/ToshiroMifune in two of the lead roles. It is considered by many Western critics to be the finest Japanese film of all time, and quite a few of them consider it to be [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_best one of the finest films ever made]], period.

* BaldOfAwesome: Again, Kambei is an old, badass samurai, and he has not one hair on his head. Inverted in-story, as Kambei shaves his head early on to impersonate a monk in his EstablishingCharacterMoment, something [[ImportantHaircut no honorable (read: proud) samurai would do.]]

* FriendToAllLivingChildren: Kikuchiyo starts to show he's more than just a loudmouth and a drunk by entertaining some of the farmers' kids, showing he does have some kindness in him.

* ButtMonkey: Subverted with Kikuchiyo. The other samurai mock him repeatedly, arguably Heihachi most of all, [[spoiler:but eventually accept him as a teammate. Kikuchiyo performs heroically during the final attack and even [[RedemptionEqualsDeath earns a samurai's death]].]]

* CoolOldGuy: Kambei, although the village elder deserves mention.

*** The HonorBeforeReason trope is symbolically called out during the opening, where Kambei does not hesitate to shame himself by shaving his head, since it saves a boy's life. Peasants are also shown to have their own virtues that the samurai openly envy.

* CombatPragmatist: Kambei shaves his head within his first scene (to samurai, this was a symbol of shame) so he can trick a bandit into thinking he is a monk and save a child. Heihachi mentions how he usually runs away from battle when he's about to die. Other samurai mention less-than-noble (from the standpoint of a samurai) tactics used for survival. The film takes place before the Edo period, when samurai really took HonorBeforeReason seriously.

* BattleInTheRain: Arguably the {{Trope Maker|s}} for film.
* BerserkButton:
** Rikichi does not want to discuss his wife or his marriage. [[spoiler:It's because his village traded his wife along with grain and horses for safety from the bandits when they attacked the village last time.]]
** Kikuchiyo will flip out spectacularly if commoners are being endangered.
** Manzo is absolutely ''paranoid'' that his daughter, Shino, will be seduced by a samurai: he hacks off her hair, orders her to pretend to be a boy [[spoiler: and beats her when he discovers that she'd slept with Katsushiro]].

* BadassMustache: Kambei. [[http://www.oocities.org/azuchiwind/seven_samurai_shimada.jpg Aw yeeah.]]'

* WhenItRainsItPours: Used quite effectively during the final battle.

* TrainingThePeacefulVillagers: The TropeMaker. The saumrai rely heavily on using the peasants to ZergRush small groups of bandits and stab them with spears.

* EnthusiasmVersusStoicism: Goes all the way from Kyūzō who probably has icewater in his veins over to Kikuchiyo, who's a hop and a skip away from being stark raving loony.

* LostInTranslation: Some of the lines and jokes are lost through translating them into the English subtitles, such as the joke that Kikuchijo's lineage not only would mean that he's 13 years old, but also that he would be a girl.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The village and its people are saved. But four of the samurai are dead, and Katsushirou probably cannot remain with Shino. Kambei, reviewing the scene of their victory, sadly remarks "Once again, we are defeated."]]

* BaldOfAwesome: Again, Kambei is an old, badass samurai, and he has not one hair on his head.
** Subverted in-story, as Kambei shaves his head early on to impersonate a monk in his EstablishingCharacterMoment, something [[ImportantHaircut no honorable (read: proud) samurai would do.]]

* BavarianFireDrill: The entire village is completely deserted when the Samurai arrive, terrified that these hired swordsmen will molest their women. [[spoiler: Kikuchiyo flushes them out by ringing the alarm bell as if the bandits were coming.]]

** Kyouzo's moment comes when his unnamed dueling opponent demands a rematch with real swords, In one line he shows utter confidence, compassion, and a certain lack of diplomacy: "No use. You'd die."

* JapaneseDialects: The farmers all speak in thick regional accents, while the samurai all have standard Japanese dialect.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The village and its people are saved. But four of the samurai are dead, and Katsushirou cannot remain with Shinou. Kambei, reviewing the scene of their victory, sadly remarks "Once again, we are defeated."]]

* UngratefulTownsfolk: The samurai, after saving the village, are given nothing more than millet, while the beautiful women of the village gorge themselves on rice, and Katushiro, who loved Shino, ends up alone.

* UptownGirl: Gender-inverted: Katsushiro and Shino can't be together because she is a peasant.