SOURCE: "The Circumstance of the East, The Fate of the West: Notes, Mostly on The Seven Samurai," in Literature and Film Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1985, pp. 112-17.

[In the following essay, Cardullo uses The Seven Samurai to illustrate the difference between Fate and Circumstance.]

    I must categorize the films of the
    world into three distinct types.
    European films are based upon human
    psychology, American films upon
    action and the struggles of human beings,
    and Japanese films upon
    circumstance. Japanese films are
    interested in what surrounds the
    human being.
                                     —Masahiro Shinoda

Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954) is such a film, one which portrays the power of circumstance over its characters' lives. The major "circumstance" in the film is this: with the invention of the gun and the development of the horse as an instrument of warfare, the samurai have been rendered obsolete as the warrior or fighter figures in Japanese society...