Yojimbo
"So opens "Yojimbo" (1961), Akira Kurosawa's most popular film in Japan. He was deliberately combining the samurai story with the Western, so that the wind-swept main street could be in any frontier town, the samurai (Toshiro Mifune) could be a gunslinger, and the local characters could have been lifted from John Ford's gallery of supporting actors." "Ironic, that having borrowed from the Western, Kurosawa inspired one: Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), with Clint Eastwood, is so similar to "Yojimbo" that homage shades into plagiarism." "The samurai were famed for their unyielding loyalty to their employers, but Sanjuro (Mifune), finding himself unemployed because of the collapse of the feudal system, becomes a modern man and is able to manipulate both sides because they persist in thinking he will be faithful to those who pay him." "Sanjuro's strategy is an elaborate chess game in which he is playing for neither side but plans instead to upset the board. "In this town, I'll get paid for killing," he muses, "and this town would be better off if they were dead." His planning is upset by the unexpected appearance of Unosuke (Tatsuya Nakadai), the younger brother of one of the sake dealer's bodyguards. The samurai often walk about with their empty sleeves flapping at the sides, their arms folded inside their kimonos. (Eastwood, in the Leone movies, always keeps one hand under his poncho.) When Unosuke finally reveals one of his hands, it holds a pistol -- the first one seen in the village. This upsets the balance of power and tilts against Sanjuro's plans, which depend on his skill as a swordsman who can kill any number of the others without being wounded himself." ------ Roger Ebert DVD - The Criterion Collection
Curator's Comments: Read Roger Ebert's essay on this DVD Classic. Director: Akira Kurosawa Country: Japan
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