‘Seven Samurai’ at 70: Kurosawa’s epic still moves like nothing else

AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. But despite its age, the vitality and fleet-footed movement of Kurosawa’s epic is still breathtaking. To watch it again is to be swept along, all over again, by its flowing action and breadth of vision. Just as swiftly as Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura), the noble samurai leader of the seven, sprints this way and that in the climactic battle, “Seven Samurai” moves — man, does it move. This summer, timed to the 1954 film’s anniversary, a new restoration of “Seven Samurai” is playing in theaters beginning Wednesday in New York and expanding around the country July 12. It’s a chance to revisit a stone-cold classic in all its big-screen glory.