Yojimbo film: Encyclopedia - Yojimbo film

Yojimbo (film)

Yojimbo (用心棒) is a 1961 jidaigeki film by Akira Kurosawa, in which a ronin, portrayed by Toshiro Mifune, arrives at a small town with competing crime lords making their money from gambling, and convinces each crime lord to hire him as protection from the other. By careful political manoeuvring and the use of his sword, he brings peace by encouraging both sides to wipe each other out.

The film's look and themes were inspired by several sources, including John Ford's western film conventions including the canonical taciturn loner and the helpless townsfolk needing a protector. Its cinematography mimics conventional shots in western films including that of the lone hero in a wideshot, facing an enemy or enemies from a distance when the wind kicks up dust between the two. Another important influence was the film noir classic The Glass Key from 1942. This film, which starred Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake and is adapted from the novel by Dashiell Hammett is cited by Kurosawa as his inspiration. And, in fact, the scenes of the samurai's brutal beating are copied practically shot-for-shot from that film. The plot of Yojimbo is actually much closer to another Hammett novel, Red Harvest, a fact which has led to many unsubstantiated rumors that Red Harvest was the real inspiration. In the latter novel, a private eye, for undetermined, perhaps quixotic, motives, determines to clean up a gang-ridden mining town by inciting every mobster against every other. The detective manages to ride out the resulting waves of murder, saving his own life but nearly at the cost of his own private code of ethics. In Red Harvest, The Glass Key and Yojimbo, corrupt officials and businessmen are seen to stand behind and profit from the rule of the gangsters.

Yojimbo was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars, a spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood; Youth of the Beast, a modern Japanese yakuza crime movie directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Shishido Jo; and remade, yet again, in a 20th century "gangster" genre, as Last Man Standing, starring Bruce Willis.

Yojimbo film - Trivia

• The Japanese word yojimbo can be translated into English as bodyguard, and in the American film The Bodyguard Kevin Costner's character takes Whitney Houston's to see Yojimbo.
• In the movie the hero, beaten, disarmed and left for dead, recovers in a small hut where he practices using a throwing knife by pinning a fluttering leaf. In actuality the leaf started out pinned, the knife was yanked away by a wire and the leaf flew away in a breeze. The film was then reversed in time. The knife-throw is used later to disable one of the gangsters, who has a Colt 45 pistol where everyone else has only swords. This corresponds to the "iron plate" trick employed by Clint Eastwood's character in A Fistful of Dollars when he returns after being beaten.
• An anime series produced by Kurosawa Productions in 2001 entitled Kaze no Yojimbo (literally Bodyguard of the Wind) retold the story of the original film by setting it in the modern era. Many of the characters and events in the series are analogous to characters and events in Yojimbo, but additional subplots and characters were added in order to sustain it as a twenty-five episode TV series and to distinguish itself from Akira Kurosawa's film.

• The 1962 film Sanjuro is often said to be a sequel to Yojimbo. It is also directed by Kurosawa and stars Mifune. The protaganists of both films are scruffy, cynical samurai operating in the 19th century. It is never explicitly stated that they are the same character, but they seem identical to many observers.

• The 1970 film Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo also features Mifune as a similar character. It is one of a series of movies featuring the blind swordsman Zatoichi.

• The 1970 film Incident at Blood Pass also stars Mifune as a very similar character.

• Ogami Itto character from the popular manga (then made into six feature movies) Lone Wolf and Cub is heavily influenced by Toshiro Mifune portrayal of Yojimbo, the looks and scruffines is almost identical.

• Many of the actors that appeared in Yojimbo worked with Kurosawa before and after, especially Takashi Shimura (who appeared in Seven Samurai and Ikiru) and Tatsuya Nakadai (who later became Kurosawa's main leading actor after a fall out with Toshiro Mifune).

• Yojimbo created a new type of onscreen antihero in which the hero is seen as dirty and lacking manners instead of the typical clean-cut hero.

• Some say Yojimbo is based on an actual legendary samurai called Miyamoto Musashi, known for being a wandering samurai.

Yojimbo film - External link

• Yojimbo at the Internet Movie Database
• Alexander Sesonske essay at criterionco.com

Categories: 1961 films | Films directed by Akira Kurosawa | Japanese films | Jidaigeki films | Criterion Collection

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Yojimbo film", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki