Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese epic jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Starring Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima and Yukiko Shimazaki, it tells the story of a village of peasants who hire seven samurai to help defend their village from bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops. Influential in world cinema, Seven Samurai is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made.