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Trivia: Right after the battle scene where Kambei kills a bandit with a high stance strike, there's a shot of a bandit being swamped by peasant militia. Pay attention to another bandit riding up into this shot in the upper left corner. There's an unsuspecting extra who is standing right in the path of the second bandit's horse. The horse rams the extra, violently throwing him to the ground. (02:46:40)

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Trivia: Toshiro Mifune, who plays Kikuchiyo, was actually the best swordsman and martial artist of any of the actors who play samurai in the film (he was the only one who seriously studied various martial arts). Ironically, he was cast to play the worst swordsman in the group.

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Trivia: In some instances in the film, such as when Gorobei kills the bandit who was checking the water level with an arrow, the actors were actually shot with real arrows. The actor would simply wear a block of wood under his costume (which you can see if you know what to look for) and an expert archer would actually shoot him.

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Trivia: Seiji Miyaguchi, who plays Kyuzo the master swordsman, actually had the least experience with swordplay among all of the actors who play samurai in the film. In fact, he never even touched a sword until a few weeks before shooting the film (he initially turned the role down for this reason). Most of his fight scenes rely on clever editing to make him appear to be a master.

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Continuity mistake: Shichiroji throws a spear out the door of Rikichi's hut in anger, it lands obviously in parallel with the door. Later, after Kikuchiyo's outburst he runs outside and picks the spear up, however it's now laying sideways compared to the door.

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Visible crew/equipment: When the samurai are giving battle advice to the peasants, who sit around them forming a circle, the camera does a rather wide circle shot of them. You can see the camera track for the shot in most of scene behind the sitting peasants.

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Revealing mistake: When Kikuchiyo tricks and kills the gunner, he chases him a short way, then stabs him with a sword. Even though there's a tree blocking the action, you can still see he never actually stabs him, he just lightly stabs the ground near him.

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Revealing mistake: At the last battle Katsushiro stabs a bandit who's climbing the fence to escape. It's completely obvious that the sword never penetrates the bandit. In fact, Katsushiro just seems to just tap him with the tip and his clothes aren't even torn from it, yet he still dies. Maybe a heart attack?

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