"The Seven Samurai" is a tediously long movie (about 3 hours and 30 minutes in length) about a village of farmers who hire a small band of samurai to defend their village from a much larger group of bandits.
The film is really slow at the beginning, and it takes a long time to introduce the samurais. However, once they arrive at the village the pace of the movie picks up a bit.
Some of the acting is a bit over-the-top and hard to believe, but most of that is the characters that are there for comic relief. Many others appear to be trying to hard in their acting and come across as poor performances. Personally, I just couldn't get into the main characters enough to feel anything when some were either killed or injured.
The visuals are done well, with only a few scenes that don't come across well due to what little light there is. The fighting scenes, and there are a lot of them, are nicely done and edited very well.
Overall, "The Seven Samurai" is a pretty good movie that is worth a look if your first choice is not available at your local video rental store.