Three Outlaw Samurai (1964) review

Several peasants come up with the less-than-bright idea of kidnapping Aya (Miyuki Kuwano), the daughter of a powerful magistrate, to protest high taxes - this whole dilemma then drags in three masterless samurai, Sakon Shiba (Tetsurō Tanba), Sakura (Isamu Nagato) and Kikyō (Mikijirō Hira), who have to sort matters out.  This was actually a feature length prequel (see, they still did those decades ago!) of a TV program in Japan to reveal how the trio got together - while it may be a little rough-going when it comes to character development (I had to keep pausing to figure out who's who), it's very well-stylized and cool (the ladies, on the other hand, have a rough go).  One interesting element that gets explored is the code of the rōnin: Shiba volunteers to be tortured in exchange for the safety of the abductors, but they're killed anyway, thereby "proving" the official's lack of ethics.