"Would you be willing to do what is right, regardless of the consequences? To see good triumph over evil and use your strength and heroism to protect the lives of others? Maybe you have what it takes to be a samurai."
Thus runs the hype on the back of this "guide" to Akira Kurosawa's 1954 "Seven Samurai." The wheedling tone, the effort to at all costs attract the inattentive student, the personalization of the product -- all of this is the accomplishment of what has become a common cottage industry in the lower reaches of academe these days: the compilation of screen guides.
With film so widely taught that there are even courses on Japanese film in England, a need (or opportunity) for such escorts through real or presumed difficulties is endorsed. "Satisfy your curiosity with the ultimate film guides . . . don't be in the dark about film."