Review: Yojimbo

Set in Japan in 1860, Toshiro Mifune is Sanjuro, a wandering samurai who finds himself playing both sides involved in a turf war. There’s the nasty silk merchant/brothel owner, and the nasty sake merchant, respectively (the former played by Seizaburo Kawazu, the latter by Kyu Sazanka), and both try to gain Sanjuro’s services as a bodyguard (or Yojimbo), whilst he sits back and watches them destroy one another. Or at least, that’s the plan. Things become complicated when Sazanka kidnaps a woman and Sanjuro develops a conscience. Tatsuya Nakadai plays Sazanka’s ruthless, dangerous, and pistol-packing brother, who proves a most formidable opponent for Sanjuro. 

Although not as good as his “Throne of Blood”, this 1961 film from Akira Kurosawa (“The Seven Samurai”, “The Hidden Fortress”) is certainly his most influential film, and one of his best. It has been ripped off countless times (once really well by Sergio Leone with “A Fistful of Dollars”), but accept no substitutes. It’s got a very simple plot, but it’s well set-up and rich enough that it’s not a mindless shoot ‘em up like the later rip-off “Last Man Standing” was. It’s also surprisingly violent for 1961, with a dog carrying a severed hand six minutes into the film and a hand getting chopped off 20 minutes in. Meanwhile, has there ever been a bigger bad arse on screen than Toshiro Mifune? I’ll answer that for you: Nope. His character Sanjuro has balls of steel to be doing what he’s doing in this film. Fucking around with two warring armies/gangs, it’s a seemingly suicidal scam, but this guy knows he’s good enough to pull it off. How good? Well, they say you should never bring a knife to a gunfight, but this guy mows down a gunman and his henchman on his own expertly with a samurai sword. Along with a terrific music score by Masaru Sato (“Throne of Blood”, “The Hidden Fortress”, “Sanjuro”), Mifune’s bad arse screen presence is the film’s biggest strength. However, despite some displays of uber-confident badassery, Mifune’s a little more fallible in this one. If you like your Mifune to be more vulnerable and get beat up by the Japanese equivalent of The Great Khali, this is probably going to be more your thing than say, “Sanjuro” where Mifune was absolutely unstoppable. 

Isuzu Yamada as Orin, one of the wives of the warring bosses is also terrifically scheming and shifty. I was also impressed with Eijiro Tono as a cranky old tavern keeper. I was disappointed that the very fine Takashi Shimura gets short shrift here as a sake brewer. He was terrific in “The Seven Samurai” but otherwise never got all that much to do in Kurosawa’s films that I’ve seen. 

The film is really nicely shot in B&W by Kazuo Miyagawa (“Rashomon”, “Floating Weeds”), with especially good use of the wide frame. It would appear that Mr. Leone learned more from this film than just taking its basic plotting. Scripted by Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima (“The Hidden Fortress”, “Throne of Blood”, “Tora! Tora! Tora!”), the film’s one flaw is that it’s too long by about 20 minutes for such a simple story. The screenwriters try to make it not so repetitive however, and mostly succeed. It’s rock-solid entertainment, stunningly photographed and scored, with Toshiro Mifune dominating the screen in the lead. 

Rating: B-