The plot of a loner caught between two warring gangster clans has been used throughout Hollywood history. Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo utilized the idea of the wandering warrior to its fullest potential, however, and showcased a tale that would continue to influence filmmakers to this day. Yojimbo, from 1961, is a dark and comic look at a masterless samurai and a small town dealing with competing crime lords.
The incomparable Toshirō Mifune stars as the samurai. He gives himself the name Kuwabatake Sanjuro which translates into “Mulberry Field thirty-year-old.” Of course, he has made the name up in classic movie fashion by looking across to a field when asked for his identity. Bored and out of work, Sanjuro comes upon a small town with a vicious range war between two factions. Sanjuro steps into the middle of the conflict, looking to turn the situation into something advantageous for himself. It helps that there doesn’t appear to be anyone within the village worth saving.
It’s no wonder that Kurosawa’s Yojimbo was remade twice – first with Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars and second with Walter Hill’s Last Man Standing. The concept is accessible, the story is unique, and Kurosawa bends the genre around with the instance of an advantageous protagonist more interested in his own benefit than that of the troubled village. The notion of turning the two gangs against one another is also unique, with the protagonist more focused on manipulating the opposing forces than taking them on with his sword.
Kurosawa’s influential motion picture is an exercise in mood and tone, but at its heart it is essentially a very basic action and adventure movie. I would argue that Yojimbo is perhaps his most accessible work, telling a simple tale of villagers in trouble and an arriving “hero” who is less than heroic.
Mifune is absolutely remarkable, as usual. His facial expressions, comic timing, and line delivery are all spot-on. The supporting cast, which includes Tatsuya Nakadai as Unosuke, Yōko Tsukasa as Nui, Takashi Shimura as Tokuemon, Isuzu Yamada as Orin, and Daisuke Katō as Inokichi, is fabulous.
Yojimbo, which means “bodyguard,” is Kurosawa’s most popular film in Japan. The notion of combining the samurai story with the western was heavily influenced by the movies of John Ford, of whom Kurosawa was a fan. Kurosawa was also inspired by Dashiell Hammett’s novel Red Harvest, in which a private detective turns one gang against the other.
It is interesting to watch Mifune deal with Sanjuro. He needs to develop a character and drum up interest in the protagonist while the protagonist is doing the same. Sanjuro is working to “sell himself,” so to speak, to the highest bidder. Mifune needs to make something out of Sanjuro’s motivations to do no actual fighting as a bodyguard. He needs to hop atop the central bell tower while the gangs fight it out in the streets. He needs to look amused, too.
Kurosawa’s film takes a bleak, oft-amusing look at life after the feudal system. It is a world where uninterested and purposeless men fill their time and attempt to fill their stomachs. There is disorder, gang warfare, and very little actual good left. It is a world in which the new and the old hang in the balance and wait for the other to fall first. Yojimbo’s examination of the transition of time, the manipulation tactics of a meandering samurai, and the culture of a town not worth saving makes it one of Kurosawa’s best works.
10/10
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