On that simple framework and familiar story line, director Kurosawa has plastered a wealth of rich detail, which brilliantly illuminates his characters and the kind of action in which they are involved. He has loaded his film with unusual and exciting physical incidents and made the whole thing graphic in a hard, realistic western style.

Bosley Crowther

The New York Times

The glorious vigour and strength of this film is presented with such theatrical relish and flair: its energy flashes out of the screen like a sword.

Peter Bradshaw

The Guardian

Rich in detail, vivid in characterization, leisurely in exposition, this 207-minute epic is bravura filmmaking -- a brilliant yet facile synthesis of Hollywood pictorialism, Soviet montage, and Japanese theatricality that could be a B western transposed to Mars.

J. Hoberman

Village Voice