Rashomon or Seven Samurai?

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Rashomon is better, IMO.

But then again I have always been underwhelmed by Seven Samurai. I admire the film --- and from a directorial standpoint I think it's one of Kurosawa's best --- but it is easily one of my least favorite Kurosawa.

I prefer Hidden Fortress, Throne of Blood, Sanjuro/Yojimbo, etc. since I enjoy them more.

Seven Smaurai for me. I think that if I'd seen Rashomon when it first came out, I know noone had ever seen anythng like it at the time, I probably would have liked it better than I did. I thought Rashomon was beautiful to look at but I guess its groundbreakingness ( I know - not a word) is lost to me. I HAVE seen this type of thing before.

I prefer Seven Samurai. I consider it the best movie ever made (at least of the ones I've seen). It's a war movie, an epic, an action/adventure movie, a buddy movie, a character movie, a comedy, a tragedy, and social commentary, with romance and spirituality thrown in. It has something to appeal to everybody and works on every level. Seven Samurai tells a compelling story with broad sweep well. It has a heart that Rashomon lacks.

My feelings about Rashomon (which, admittedly, I've only seen once, but the first time I saw it was shortly after I'd seen Seven Samurai for the first time) are that it is too cold and theoretical. The contradictions and ambiguity are all Rashomon is about. The contradictions and ambiguity in Seven Samurai are more subtle, and you're not hit in the face with them. You don't (or I don't, at least) care about the characters in Rashomon or their fates, as they are all shown to be liars, and I have to say I'm shallow enough to feel dissatistied and cheated that there is no "reveal" or even a strong hint as to what is true (although I agree that the woodcutter's story is probably the closest to the truth). The use of the medium to speak for the dead man also put me off - I realize it's culturally accurate, but I'd rather see the dead man's ghost speak directly than through someone else, as the two potential levels of lies makes his story even more suspect.

As for Seven Samurai - how can you call it just a western? Even if its structure merely imitated and improved on the western within a Japanese context - which I don't buy, as I think Kurosawa was blending the western with existing samurai constructs which were similar to westerns and in some ways the precursors of martial arts files - the movie is chockful of social commentary and class conflict. It's the social commentary and class conflict - Kambei saying to Shichijori in the next to last scene "Once again we've survived" (or, more loosely, "At last we've won") and in the final scene "And again we've lost - the farmers are the winners, not us" - and the existentialist view that there is one should do good and do right for their own sake and not for any tangible reward that are the overarching themes of Seven Samurai. It's the absence of these overarching themes and incomplete equivalencies in characters (no gunfighter can show the finesse and nobility of character of the swordsman, who after all is ironically killed by a rifle) which make the American remake The Magnificent Seven a good movie, not a great one. These overarching themes, plus technical innovations such as the wipe, are why I consider Seven Samurai the greatest movie ever and much better than Rashomon, which wouldn't even be my next favorite Kurosawa movie.

Rashomon is all about technique and process, not story. While I realize Rashomon is an artistic masterpiece and was groundbreaking in telling the same story from multiple perspectives, I disagree with its premise that there is no objective truth (although I agree that we are not capable of discerning objective truth perfectly). I have also seen multiple perspective done better, although to be honest I prefer the multiple/alternative ending structure - Sliding Doors, Memento (although in its own way Memento is as or more confusing than Seven Samurai and its ending equally as unsatisfying) to the pure multiple perspective. While Seven Samurai is existentialist in outlook, Rashomon is nihilistic. I have to go with the more positive, warmer, character-driven movie.

As an aside, despite these words, I do like and admire Rashomon - I just can't warm up to it. On the other hand, I can't stand Citizen Kane, which many consider the best film ever, or at least the best in English. I agree it's well-written, well-acted, and well-directed and photographed; I just find its storyline meandering or non-existent, its characters unpleasant and offputting, and don't care one iota what happens to them. The final scene - showing Rosebud to be his childhood sled - left me completely cold.