So you're one of a group of farmers whose village is under attack by a gang of remorseless bandits. None of you know how to fight, so you leave to hire a group of warriors who are willing to defend you for the pittance you can pay, plus meals. So you come back with seven guys and... hey, Wait a minute, haven't we seen this somewhere before?
No, you haven't been reading TV Tropes for so long that everything is blending together. This is actually a relatively common plot device. Take the basic plot of a bunch of cool guys + awesome goal + clearly defined personality types + any other overtones of Seven Samurai you can think of and bam! Instant "team on a mission" story!
Because Seven Samurai contains many plot elements which are not exclusive to Japanese culture, it's easy to shift the basic narrative around and still get a workable movie angle. In fact, it's such a classically popular example of a narrative that many filmmakers don't even bother being subtle in the process of Homage- there's a lot more movies out there with exactly seven heroes doing this kind of plot than you'd expect.
The trope title and namers are Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) and The Magnificent Seven, the latter of which is famous for both transferring the Kurosawa classic to the Old West (with Kurosawa's blessing) and being a classic in its own right. (A trivial note: Seven Samurai was originally released in the USA as The Magnificent Seven; the English title was changed to a direct translation of the Japanese title later to avoid confusion with the remake.)
The team is forced to leave, whether due to the skepticism or wariness of the villagers or threats from the villains.
The team decides to return.
There is another attack; the people join in both enthusiastically and competently. Several of the team are injured or killed; the attackers are defeated soundly, but not always completely.
The people indicate that they now can and will defend themselves when and if the attackers return. What remains of the team departs.
A three-part story arc in the anime version of Fist of the North Star 2 featured Kenshiro teaming up with a gang of post-apocalyptic cowboys clearly modeled after The Magnificent Seven. Even the group's name, "The Wasteland Seven", is taken from the Japanese title of The Magnificent Seven.
The third Crossbone Gundam manga, Steel Seven, has this built into it: remnants of the Jupiter Empire are building a super-massive colony laser in Jovian orbit with the intent of blasting Earth. The only method of getting to Jupiter in time to stop the weapon is a flying wing that can only carry roughly seven Mobile Suits, so The Hero goes around trying to recruit the best pilots he can find.
One of the good guys explicitly makes the reference, commenting "I love Kurosawa movies!" when the plan is discussed.
Inverted in Gaogaigar, in the second half of the series the seven most powerful villains show up to challenge the heroes. The fan translation of the series even refers to them as the "Magnificent 7 Machine World Primevals".
Kinnikuman, the Planet Rakka mini-arc. The child-like Choujin Beansman comes to Earth to recruit Choujin to help save his people from the Space Samurai, and teams up with Terryman, Ramenman, Brocken Jr., Puyo Puyo, and Crystalman, with Kin forcing himself into the group. Together, they are the Magnificent Choujin 6!
Kinnikuman: Hey, there are seven of us!
In Naruto the first major arc, the Land of Waves, quickly turns into this plot. Team 7 is hired to act as bodyguards for a cantakerous old man named Tazuna but instead of protecting him from ordinary bandits on the journey home, they discover he has been marked for death by Gatou, a shipping magnate and crime lord, who has taken over his impoverished country and wants to stop Tazuna from building a bridge to the mainland and thus break his economic tyranny, and has hired dangerous ninja assassin Momochi Zabuza and his gang of missing-nin to take him out. It ends with the people of Tazuna's village being inspired to make a stand against Gatou's army of hoodlums.
Comic Books
Marvel Star Wars (the original Star Wars comic book), where immediately after they finished with the movie, the plot moves on to Han and Chewie leading six other fighters (including wanna-be Jedi Don Wan Kihotay and green carnivorous rabbit-man Jaxxom) in defense of a small village.
Marvel Adventures: Avengers had an issue like this. In accordance with the series's early title theme of altering famous movie titles, this was called The Avenging Seven. It actually did include a little village beset by raiders, had someone travel far with the village's single most precious treasure, had an extended sequence of Training the Peaceful Villagers, and at the end the heroes were paid in three tons of food.
Chris Claremont's Sovereign Seven. The seven in question were aliens, each a prince or princess of his or her homeworld, and each the sole survivor of that world. They banded together to protect the universe (and Earth in particular) from 'the Rapture'; the event that destroyed their homeworlds.
The ABC Warriors - they are even referred to as 'The Mek-Nificent Seven', both in-story and by fans.
Demon Knights: Writer Paul Cornell describes the book as "the medieval Magnificent Seven". #3 is titled "The Malificant Seven". Subverted by the end of the first arc - the village they were protecting is rubble, there are few if any survivors among the villagers, and the heroes' "victory" is that they live to fight again.
A Bug's Life, where the "warriors" are actually circus performers mistaken for warriors.
Arthur and his six Sarmatian knights in the 2004 King Arthur movie, with the Britons and the "Woads" as the villagers and the Saxons as the bandits. The scene after the battle of Badon Hill with the graves of the knights who fell is lifted straight from Kurosawa.
In the 1979 movie Seven (not be confused with the 1995 serial killer movie), seven hitmen are hired to kill seven mob bosses who planning a criminal takeover of Hawaii.
World Gone Wild, starring Bruce Dern, Michael Pare, and Adam Ant, is Seven Samurai but without the fantastic script, amazing direction, or brilliant acting, set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where water is the most precious commodity on earth.
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Marauders" (especially given that there are seven main characters in this series) with a human mining colony being taught to fight against Klingons who are extorting their deuterium.
Even more obviously, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had "The Magnificent Ferengi". And it is funny as hell! Though technically, there's only six of them and they don't protect a village, they still engage in the classic "building up the team" and having each character be introduced with a particular character archetype, as well as the obvious Shout Out in the title.
The "Heart of Gold" episode from Firefly. An interesting twist is that the "Village" to be defended is a whorehouse.
Inverted in The Black Adder episode "The Black Seal" as Edmund gathers the six most evil men in England (plus himself) to take over the kingdom.
Kung Fu: The Legend Continues had an episode called "Dragonswing", where Caine and Peter assemble a team of Shao Lin alumni to help a friend rescue his girlfriend from the thugs who've taken over his Northwestern town. Robert Vaughn guest-starred as Rykker, a mercenary very similar to his Magnificent Seven character.
The Robin of Sherwood episode "The Swords of Wayland" - at least at first. The plot soon took the outlaws away from the village and in search of the stolen McGuffin.
Tabletop Games
There are at least two instances in the Legend of the Five Rings setting. One is the start of Toku's rise from farmer to general. The other were drawn together by a wandering monk to serve as living examples of Bushido. The Seven Thunders drawn from the Great Clans once a millennium or so to face down the Dark God Fu Leng may or may not fit a similar theme.
"A Fistful of Dwarfs", an article in the short-lived gaming magazine Visions detailing a "spaghetti Western" area of the Discworld, included this scenario. This being Discworld, of course, the villagers have a cast-iron contract for the warriors to sign, which specifies that warriors who die don't get paid and exempts the villagers themselves from the nastier bits of the movie.
The Fifth Edition Warhammer rulebook included suggestions for a 'Seven Knights' scenario, in which one player took seven Hero Units against an entire army on the other side.
In that edition of the game this amounted to a ridiculously easy win for the heroes unless the other player got lucky with the artillery.
The Scenario was revived in Sixth Edition in a much harder version TWICE. Once for the Storm of Chaos called Seven Sigmarites which is so unbalanced against the seven (due in great part to the relative weakness of the Empire army book's heroes at the time since the Empire was mainly a gunline army) your goal isn't to win, just to kill enough of the oncoming horde. The second scenario features a group of European knights lost deep in the jungle raiding native tombs who are systematically attacked and slain by native defenders for the Lustria setting. It's slightly easier do to the plethora of random stuff available to the heroes (they have been grave robbing) and due to the Rules for Lustria making single characters in a jungle much harder to find and kill.
Theatre
The Seven Samurai is actually based on the third play in the Oedipus trilogy by Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes, making this one Older Than Feudalism. Although each of the Seven brought his own army, and they were attacking the city during a civil war, not defending it.
Video Games
The video game Seven Samurai 20XX. Written by Kurosawa's son, hated by damn near everyone.
This trope shows up in the Bioware RPG Dragon Age: Origins, where the party defends a town against the undead. But due to the Arbitrary Headcount Limit, it's more like the Magnificent Four.
Bioware likes this trope so much that they built the party members of Mass Effect after it. Shepard is The Hero and The Leader. Kaiden is the Lancer. Ashley is the big guy. Liara is the smart guy. Wrex is the Old Guy (he is a couple hundred years old). Tali is the young guy. Garrus is... whatever's left.
If you see Tali and Liara as both being Smart Guys in different fields, then Garrus could be the Young Guy. Shepard becomes his mentor, after all, and his character development reflects what he picks up from your own behavior as a Paragon or Renegade.
The bulk of Mass Effect 2 is basically assembling an entire 10-person team (12 with the DLC) Magnificent Seven-style, with the added wrinkle of getting said team loyal to you and upgrading your ship and weapons before the main mission of going through the Omega-4 Relay. Though it is possible for people to die during the Suicide Mission, your primary goal is to take out the Collector base and bring everyone back alive.
Halo: Reach has some shades of this. Except it doesn't end very well...
Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is about Costa Rica recruiting a heroic mercenary group to defend it from mysterious invaders, since it legally can't keep its own defence force.
The Greil Mercenaries of the Fire Emblem Tellius duology; it numbered seven members at least initially.
Tales of Vesperia has seven characters you can choose from for your party eventually as does Tales of Graces.
Final Fantasy VII has a core cast of 7(+2) that fits almost too perfectly. In fact, we could call them "The Final Fantasy Seven":
Cloud - leader, reluctant
Tifa - lancer, heart o' gold
Barret - big (initially the leader, until the plot gets out of hand), loud
Aerith - smart one, quiet
Cid - old guy, money lover
Red XIII - 'young' guy, who IS a dog
Cait Sith - funny and evil
Yuffie - a 2nd young guy, actually young this time, though
Vincent - a 2nd big guy, due to his monstrous nature
In NO WAY do they save the town though...
Webcomics
During the "That Which Redeems" Story Arc from Sluggy Freelance, Torg tries to set one of these up after the Dimension of Lame summons/kidnaps him into protecting them from Demonic Invaders. Unfortunately, all the people he recruits come from the Dimension of Lame and ... well, it's called that for a reason.
ReBoot uses this in the post-Time Skip episode "Icons". Matrix and Andraia find themselves in a rundown computer system and have to teach the inhabitants to win games to ensure the system's survival. When Matrix finds that the Tag Along Kid has brought their makeshift team to seven, he utters a sarcastic "magnificent".
Wakfu's fifth episode does exactly this, down to the title ("The Magnificent Five"). Though, to be honest, it actually is more of a parody of this trope, subverting most plot points common to other examples (the ending, for one).
Star Wars: The Clone Wars has the episode "Bounty Hunters". It even mentions Kurosawa in the opening.
Justice League Crisis On Two Earths involves the six 'core' Leaguers (the same from the series, less Hawkgirl, and with Hal Jordan as Green Lantern) join an alternate universe Luthor to save said alternate universe from evil versions of themselves.
Kappa Mikey has an episode where the five crew members are called by a little boy to save their playground from a garbage man intent on turning it into a landfill. The boy is under the impression that they are heroes instead of actors, and the LilyMu crew is under the impression that it's all a publicity gig!
