10 Ridiculously Overrated Foreign Films

3. Seven Samurai

There's no denying the influence of Akira Kurosawa's films on contemporary cinema; his Rashomon invented the idea of multiple perspectives in cinema, and similarly, it was Seven Samurai which first introduced the much-copied "band of soldiers team up to save a village or group of people" movie that's still prevalent in the likes of The Expendables. Though the film has a mighty legacy, it hasn't aged particularly well, for while it's easy to become wrapped up in the heft of its epic, sprawling runtime, the scripting is extremely meandering, and the characterisation is uneven, meaning we get hugely invested in some of their back stories, while others we couldn't give the slightest toss about. To be fair, most films would struggle to live up to such a grand legacy, and it's important to remember that many of the film's tropes are now extremely familiar to us, so we need to contextualise our first viewing. Still, though, it ain't quite all it's cracked up to be.