Ghost Of Tsushima: 10 Samurai Films You NEED To Watch First

The samurai epic that put Kurosawa on the map. Its story is simple: seven ronin get hired by a poor village to aid in protecting against a group of invading bandits. What isn't simple is the scope of this film, intricate battles scenes, and huge ensemble cast of memorable characters

The choreography is incredible with the greatest action sequences ever created and sweeping camera movements with kinetic energy of a modern film. Its grandiose sense of feeling is so powerful, when we see the loss of a member of the community, we feel it.

Instead of simply romanticizing the samurai, Kurosawa shows the full scope and reality of their post-reign. He shows how the rule of samurai during the Edo period caused terrible conditions and overtaxation on everyday nobles. The shame the seven samurai feel when confronted with this reality is the same as the audiences of the time: there's no longer black and white morality in the modern world.

The world has just survived the greatest conflict it has ever seen less than a decade ago, and the confrontation with its past is inevitable. This humanistic presentation of a complicated world makes it standout from typical epics the west was used to during this time along other films in the genre.

It's the movie that put Kurosawa on the map and the first Japanese film to be shown in the West that started it all. It introduced samurai films to the Western audiences and Hollywood, cementing with it a legacy of rich cinematic language and epic battles that gave any Hollywood movie a run for its money.