There is a brief moment in Kurosawa’s masterpiece Seven Samurai in which several of our protagonists come across the camp of bandits which have been plaguing the town they have sworn to protect. It is the last breath of air in the film before all out war is declared between the two warring factions, and death becomes a permanent presence on-screen. Three of the samurai, including Toshirô Mifune’s farmer/samurai Kikuchiyo, alongside one of the villagers, Rikichi encounter this house, and whilst Rikichi is sent off to scout elsewhere, the three samurai peer inside.

The moment is striking for the amount of tension it creates, but also another, perhaps unintended effect. The samurai plan their course of action, deciding to burn the house to the ground and kill those who make it outside. Consequently, for the first time in the film it is made very apparent that the people who are meant to be the saviours of the farmers and the protagonists of the film, betray themselves as what they truly are, and what their profession ultimately amounts to: they are ruthless killers. The precision with which they go about planning their attack is truly terrifying, and whilst they do spare the women of the house, their actions are still undoubtedly shocking.

The loss of humanity present within this sequence, is symbolised visually through the construction of a gaze between the samurai outside, and one of the inhabitants within. Waking from her slumber, Kurosawa presents us with several shots in which the gaze of the samurai peering in, is seemingly met and returned by a woman inside.

Whilst it is revealed that the woman is not in fact looking at them directly, but rather, what we see in Shot B is mostly likely a POV shot of those samurai gazing in from the outside, the effect it creates in that brief moment of apparent eye contact is incredibly disturbing. Despite the apparent eye contact, the failure on the part of the samurai to recognise her as human and reconsider their plan of action, reveals a devastating loss of humanity, and clear sign that the only code of the samurai is to kill, or be killed. The final irony of this scene is that the woman we witness here, is in fact Rikichi’s wife, Rikichi only returning once the slaughter has already begun. But by then it is too late.