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Remake of a remake: 'The Magnificent Seven' hits cinemas

Jochen Kürten / alsSeptember 21, 2016

The latest version of the Western classic "The Magnificent Seven" opens in cinemas around the world this week. Hollywood once scooped the story from Japanese Cinema, transforming samurais into cowboys.

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Scene from The Magnificent Seven, 2016, Copyright: picture-alliance/AP Photo/S. Emerson/Sony Pictures
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/S. Emerson/Sony Pictures

"The Magnificent Seven," the Wild West epic by director Antoine Fuqua, opened the prestigious Toronto Film Festival earlier this month. After showing in Venice and South Korea, it opens in cinemas around the world on September 22.

In 1954, Japan's master director Akira Kurosawa had shown the story on the big screen for the first time. Then the film heroes weren't cowboys, but samurai warriors. Six years later, director John Sturges turned the material into a Western - including Yul Brunner and the German Horst Buchholz.

Click through the gallery above for a glimpse of the latest version of "The Magnificent Seven" - and how it lines up with its predecessors.