Five classic samurai films by the legendary Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa. 'Seven Samurai' 1954 tells the story of a group of 17th-century warriors recently detached from the powerful masters who once paid them. Veteran samurai Kambei Takashi Shimura is the leader of the group hired by the residents of a village suffering at the hands of a marauding band of thieves. Five of his cohorts are trained warriors, but the sixth, Kikuchiyo Toshiro Mifune, is actually the son of a farmer, desperate to earn his spurs on the battlefield. The basics of the story served as the blueprint for the western classic 'The Magnificent Seven'. 'Throne of Blood' 1957, Akira Kurosawa's film version of 'Macbeth', transfers the action to medieval Japan. A samurai warrior Toshiro Mifune is urged to murder his lord Takashi Shimura and his best friend Minoru Chiaki by a forest spirit and an ambitious wife Isuzu Yamada. Kurosawa renders 'the Scottish play' through the conventions of traditional Japanese Noh the