Blurred Boundaries: Social Class and Morality in Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai

By Bridget Zhang

While most jidaigeki (period films) are set in the unified Tokugawa period, filmmaker Akira Kurosawa instead chose to focus many of his films on the Sengoku ‘Warring States’ period, characterized by constant civil wars and societal unrest (Mellen 2002, 14). Although violent and destructive, it was precisely this chaos that allowed for greater fluidity between classes, as compared to the strict social stratification that emerged later (Prince 1991, 205). In Seven Samurai (1954), Kurosawa explores this concept of blurred boundaries by crafting a unique story where farmers hire samurai to defeat bandits that threaten their village. Through showing that the farmers and samurai eventually fight together as equals, Kurosawa engages with the question of “Why can’t people be happier together?”, cited by himself to be a common theme in his filmography. Although they seem like two disparate groups, the film reveals otherwise. 

Kurosawa begins by showing the existing separation of the two classes in Part 1, with the samurai having a higher social status than the farmers. When one of the villagers, Rikichi, approaches a samurai (0:11:12), the samurai is outraged and kicks him away, shouting: “How dare you? You’re nothing but a farmer! I’m still a samurai!” Rikichi immediately assumes the prostrate position and bows profusely in apology as the samurai leaves. From this interaction, it is obvious that Rikichi knows his place as someone of a lower class and tries to mitigate the situation by not further offending the samurai. The class difference is also seen in the farmers’ offer of rice to the samurai while themselves subsisting on millet. When they first discuss hiring samurai to defend them (00:10:05), the villager Manzō remarks disbelievingly: “How are we to feed samurai when we live on rice gruel?” His statement brings out two points: that firstly they have very little means to hire samurai, as members of a lower socioeconomic class, and secondly, that rice is their most precious resource — making it all the more significant that they give it up for the samurai. 

Yet, despite this class separation, we have characters that bridge the distance between them; interestingly, with the use of rice. In fact, Stephen Prince (1991, 214–16) argues that it is rice that structures class relations and informs every event in this film. This is seen through the relationship between Shino, the daughter of Manzō, and Katsushirō, the youngest of the samurai, who fall in love and have secret meetings in the lead-up to the climactic fight. When they rendezvous at the edge of the village (1:36:54), Katsushirō brings her rice to eat, which she decides to give to Kyuemon’s grandmother (who lost her entire family to the bandits) instead. Katsushirō’s gesture shows how he disregards the class boundary between them, as rice had previously been the symbol of the samurai’s higher social status in this film. Incidentally, this also helps to bring the samurai and the farmers closer, as one of the other samurai witnesses their meeting. At the next mealtime, when all the samurai find out about Kyuemon’s grandmother, they visit and offer her a full bowl of rice. The next day, children gather outside the samurai’s hut clamoring for rice (1:40:50). The samurai come out with bowls of rice balls and although not shown, it is implied that they offer the rice balls to the farmers’ hungry children. Compared to the first samurai who cruelly rejected the farmers’ request for help due to his pride, these seven samurai are portrayed as more compassionate and willing to disregard class boundaries. The rice is meant as the samurai’s payment for helping to defend the farmers, but they instead share it with them too. These all tie-in with Prince’s idea that rice is a symbol of social status which is used to mediate class relations in this film. 

Meanwhile, the character of Kikuchiyo shows how the two social classes not only become closer but also blend together. While most samurai are born into the class, Kikuchiyo is the son of a farmer who is striving to become a real samurai, making him the perfect representation of someone who ‘rises up the ranks’ due to the class fluidity in this time period. A deliberate contrast is made when both Kikuchiyo and Katsushirō chase after Kambei (0:25:40), who will become the leader of the seven samurai. While both of them are inexperienced, Katsushirō is a born samurai while Kikuchiyo is not. This difference is thus emphasized by how Katsushirō is the one who successfully expresses his desire to become Kambei’s disciple and ends up following him. The film thereafter continues to show how Kikuchiyo is distinct from the rest of the samurai. When he meets them for the first time, he is drunk and already undesirable, as Kambei remarks: “A samurai never drinks enough to dull his wits…” (00:55:38). Unsurprisingly, he fails the stick-hitting test used to test their skill, and he is also discovered to have lied about being a real samurai using a family tree that he likely stole. The group of six samurai do not accept him at first but he still follows them to the village and keeps trying to prove himself to them. He does so quite disastrously, with incidents in Part 2 like him revealing their presence to the bandit scouts and leaving his post abandoned when the bandits attack. While the other samurai tease him throughout the film, it is more so due to his lack of skill as a samurai than his real social class, for they do not discriminate against him even after they discover his farmer background. At the end of the climactic battle, he kills the bandit chief and is finally recognized as a true samurai, but sadly dies from a gunshot wound. Therefore, while Kikuchiyo can be seen as the model character for the blending of class boundaries, Kurosawa may also be trying to recognize how difficult this actually was, even in a time period where class was more fluid. 

Furthermore, despite how Kurosawa wishes to show the two groups coming together, he is also pragmatic in portraying how the class system still affects them. In Part 2 (00:10:55), Shino says, “I wish I’d been born into a samurai family” and laments the fact that she is a farmer while Katsushirō is a samurai. She recognizes how the social climate does not look favorably upon their relationship, later supported by how her father Manzō furiously beats her and calls her names when he finds them together. He shouts, “What the hell’s a farmer girl doing with a samurai?” (01:17:32), enforcing the idea that two people of different social classes should not be together. As Katsushirō is a samurai, Manzō is bound by class rules and cannot assault him, instead taking out his anger and blame on his own daughter. At the end of the film, the two groups separate again as the farmers sing and plant new rice crops while the samurai stand off to the side. This signifies that the farmers are no longer indebted to the samurai and have recovered their most important status symbol, rice. Once the battle has been won, the two groups no longer have to be unified. The idealistic dream of having them cooperate and fight together as one played out briefly but ultimately, Kurosawa portrays the realistic aftermath: their return to their own lives after defeating the bandits. 

Apart from showing how the characters help to blend class boundaries and bring the two groups together, Kurosawa also shows how innately similar the farmers and the samurai actually are. In Part 1 (01:27:07), Kikuchiyo brings in armor, spears and bows that the farmers took from defeated warriors. The expressions of the other samurai immediately turn serious and one of them, Shichirōji, shouts angrily that “Those farmers killed samurai to get these!” and Kambei says, “You can’t understand unless you’ve been hunted.” The implication is that when these samurai were wounded in past battles, they experienced having to flee from farmers trying to kill them and steal their equipment. However, Kikuchiyo defends the farmers by saying it was the samurai who drove them to such actions. He passionately tells them that “In war, you burn their villages, trample their fields, steal their food, work them like slaves, rape their women, and kill ‘em if they resist.” (01:30:39) The other samurai look down in shame, insinuating that his accusations are true. In terms of morality, the two groups are not much different. They have both committed morally wrong actions to each other, which is a particularly significant realization for the audience, who would have previously thought of the samurai as an honorable class. 

Another important comparison is then that of the samurai and the bandits. In the turbulent Sengoku period, the civil wars frequently resulted in the death of warlords (daimyo), leaving behind their masterless samurai (ronin). While working for their daimyo, the samurai did not have to worry about their living needs, but once they became ronin, they had to find other ways to obtain resources (Agatucci 2006). The bandits are likely ronin who have chosen to completely turn to a life of crime in order to survive (Mellen 2002, 8). They wear samurai armor and one of them is also seen to be skilled with a bow and arrow, in the way that Gorobei and Kambei are. On the other hand, while the titular seven samurai are also ronin, they retained their noble values and attempted to support themselves in other ways, thus becoming hungry enough to help the farmers defeat bandits in exchange for food. This is a dialectic often seen in Kurosawa’s other films, where similar people choose different paths and as a result lead very different lives. The bandits all die in the end while three of the samurai survive, showing that following one’s morals is the right thing to do. Nevertheless, there is also the question of how different the samurai actually are from the bandits, due to the previous point about how these seemingly noble samurai also committed similarly horrible actions when they used to fight for their daimyos. 

Donald Richie (1998, 102–03) points out how the film equates the samurai with the bandits. He suggests that “good and bad might be identical”, and that for the farmers, “it is plainly a choice between evils”. While the word ‘evil’ might seem misplaced for describing the morally ‘good’ seven samurai, it is indeed how the farmers must have viewed the samurai who cruelly attacked them in the past. The farmers’ distrust is obvious when the samurai first arrive in their village. When Rikichi announces their return in Part 1 (01:07:47), the overhead shot of the village shows everyone immediately hurrying back to their houses, with not one person remaining outside to greet the samurai. When a few women peek out at the samurai (01:08:36), their wide-eyed expressions are reminiscent of that of the villager who encountered the bandits earlier. The farmers only frantically seek out the samurai when they hear the (false) alarm of a bandit attack (01:11:44), indicating that they regard the seven samurai as the lesser of the two evils. In this period of turmoil for the samurai, the farmers have effectively pitted members of the same class against each other, thus creating a dichotomy of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ronin in the film. 

Seven Samurai may be named as such, but we have seen that it is undoubtedly more than just a story about the titular samurai. The film expertly deals with social class and morality, positing that the farmers, samurai and even the bandits are theoretically not as different as they may seem. While the subjective perspective of telling a story may divide the groups into a good and bad side, the truth is that all of them have engaged in morally wrong actions before. When this is revealed in the film, the boundaries between the groups begin to blur. Kurosawa focuses on the boundary between the samurai and the farmers, uniting them in the fight against the bandits to show that social class lines can be broken when people come together for a common goal. He explores how the two different social classes can mix with the relationship between Katsushirō and Shino, and the farmer-samurai character of Kikuchiyo. At the same time, he expresses realistic reservations about this idealistic cooperative effort, therefore also portraying the tensions that still exist between the two groups and ultimately having them separate once again. 

Works Cited

Agatucci, Cora. “Introduction to Seven Samurai.” Central Oregon Community College. Last modified March 15, 2010. https://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum210/coursepack/sevensamurai.htm.

Kurosawa, Akira, dir. Seven Samurai. 1954; USA: The Criterion Collection, 2010. Kanopy.   https://usclib.kanopy.com/video/seven-samurai-1

Mellen, Joan. 2002. Seven Samurai. London: British Film Institute.

Prince, Stephen. 1991. The Warrior’s Cinema : The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa - Revised and Expanded Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Richie, Donald. 1998. The Films of Akira Kurosawa. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.