The Seven Samurai directed by Akira Kurosawa uses many cinematic techniques and characteristics of the Japanese samurai film genre to engage and influence the audience. The Japanese samurai film genre focuses on physical martial arts and is very similar to American westerns. These films are usually set in the Tokugawa era and the main characters are samurai or Ronin. The Seven Samurai is a stereotypical Japanese samurai film set in the Tokugawa era and tells the story of a village full of farmers who hire seven samurai to protect their village from a group of bandits. Kurosawa used many features of a typical samurai film in The Seven Samurai, such as the use of the katana, the samurai were generally clean cut and are considered socially superior and the endings were generally described as "bittersweet" as that life goes on. the face of tragedy. Sword fighting and the use of the katana are symbolic in Japanese samurai films. The katana is the main weapon used by samurai and they carry it with them no matter what they do, eat, sleep and especially when they fight. In the film you never see any samurai without their sword and at the end there is a long shot of the graves of the four samurai showing the katana protruding from each grave. This shows that all samurai carry their katana with them, dead or alive; they take tradition very seriously and never part with their swords. There is a scene in the film where Kambei draws his katana from under his clothes when the farmers say they are not going to help, when Kambei draws his sword the villagers cower and fall back in line, afraid of being hurt. . The katana and the use of the katana in combat symbolize strength, honor and hope and are a major problem...... middle of paper ...... the said die, and the village is rescued but four of the samurai are killed in the process. In the end the farmers are happy and celebrate their triumph over the bandits and this is considered the sweet part, the bitter part of the ending is the fact that four of the samurai were killed throughout the film. The remaining three samurai don't feel like they have won, as Kambei said, "we were defeated, the farmers won", but all the farmers are celebrating because they got rid of bandits. Farmers don't care about samurai, they just use them. This characteristic of the Japanese samurai genre engages the audience because the films do not just end with a happy ending, there is tragedy and important people are injured or killed, this gives the viewer a feeling of sympathy towards the characters and enhances the film for viewing. audience.