Seven Samurai: And Other Screenplays (Classic Screenplay Series) - Softcover

Presents three early works from the Japanese film maker Akira Kurosawa. In "The Seven Samurai" (1954) the inhabitants of a small Japanese village employ a band of roaming Samurai to defend them. This film was eventually used as a model for "The Magnificent Seven". The other screenplays featured include "Ikiru" (1952) which tells the painful and intimate story of a Japanese civil servant's coming to terms with old age and death. "Throne of Blood" (1957), based on Shakespeare's "Macbeth", tells of a Samurai who is encouraged to kill his lord. The texts featured are based on the author's own shooting scripts and this book includes a critical introduction to each script.

Writer/director Akira Kurosawa is considered one of history's greatest filmmakers. His films have profoundly affected the style and content of international cinema; in America, for example, his indelible influence can be found in everything from classic Westerns to Star Wars. When he died in 1998, he had written 62 films (and had directed 32 of these).