Director Antoine Fuqua and star Denzel Washington are bringing a new take of the classic film The Magnificent Seven to movie screens, and with that comes a lot of hype, marketing and expectations. You probably already knew that this is not the first version of The Magnificent Seven, as it’s a remake of the 1960 film of the same name, which starred Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. In fact, the original movie was also a remake of a film that wasn’t even a Western! This fact, and many others about the original The Magnificent Seven, are not widely known, but they are worth considering if you plan on heading to the theaters to see this latest Western film to get a contemporary update.
10. The Magnificent Seven Is Actually Based On A Japanese Samurai Movie
As mentioned, the 1960 movie The Magnificent Seven is itself a remake, of a 1954 movie by Japanese master director Akira Kurosawa called Seven Samurai. The critically acclaimed film is set in 1586, during the Warring States Period of Japan’s history. It is about a village of farmers who hire seven “Ronin” (masterless Samurai) to combat bandits that are planning to return after the harvest to steal their crops. Hollywood took it upon itself to change the setting of the film to the Old West, and to make the bandits a bunch of Mexicans, and thus The Magnificent Seven was created. However, the basic plot of the story remained essentially the same.
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