Eleven Samurai

Eleven Samurai
Ju-ichinin no Samurai
Directed byEiichi Kudo
Screenplay byTakeo Kunihiro
Noribumi Suzuki
Kei Tasaka
Produced byShigeru Okada
StarringIsao Natsuyagi
Kōtarō Satomi
Kōji Nanbara
Junko Miyazono
Kantarō Suga
Kō Nishimura
Ryūtarō Ōtomo
CinematographySadaji Yoshida
Music byAkira Ifukube
Production
company
Distributed byToei Company
Release date
  • 16 December 1967 (1967-12-16)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Eleven Samurai (Japanese: 十一人の侍, romaji: Jūichinin no Samurai), also known as 11 Samurai, is a 1967 Japanese jidaigeki (period drama) film directed by Eiichi Kudo. This is the third and final chapter in Kudo's Samurai Revolution trilogy. The plot is a samurai epic with a loose historical basis. "The young Lord Nariatsu was probably modeled after the real life figure of Matsudaira Nariyoshi, also known as Matsudaira Tokunosuke (1819-1839)," who was the 19th or the 20th son of the Shōgun Ienari (1787–1837) and the younger brother of the Shōgun Ieyoshi (1837–1853). "Nariyoshi died when he was 19 years old--a perfect fit for this story. The circumstances surrounding his death are obscure, which is also very convenient for dramatic purposes."