I was first spellbound by Seven samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) at Cambridge in the early 1970s, among many other formative film experiences there.

Of the samurai, I was most captivated by the master-swordsman Kyūzō (a character inspired by the “sword-saint” Miyamoto Musashi), akin to the Zen archers and mystics who were then inspiring me.

While my fellow-students were attracted to contemporary China, I was still mired in silent immobile ancient texts; but though the film’s drama is set in 16th-century Japan, it must somehow have sown the seed for my later studies of Chinese peasant life…

Among several homages, never mind The magnificent seven: most subtle and perceptive is Tampopo.