Review #472: 'Yojimbo' (1961)

A perfect example of how film style can be influential across continents, and can project that influence back into a dying genre, Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo took its plot from Dashiell Hammett's crime novel 'Red Harvest' (which also influenced Miller's Crossing (1990)), retold as a samurai jidai-geki (Japanese period film), but fundamentally the film was a stylistic homage to the widescreen American westerns, of particularly John Ford. By the 1960's the western genre was diminished in the United States, but Italian director Sergio Leone borrowed the entire scenario of Yojimbo (this translates as The Bodyguard), cast then unknown Clint Eastwood, and made one of the greatest westerns, A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Kurosawa's influence can be seen in many post-1960's American directors in a wide range of styles and genres.

Set in the 1860's, where the shogunate, samurai tradition was suffering due to modernisation and changing attitudes. The lone samurai figure (known here by a false name, Sanjuro), played by Kurosawa's favourite actor, Toshiro Mifune, arrives in a feuding small town. Two rival gangs fight and bicker to gain total control over territory, and Mifune, a hired killer, brings his own bitter vengeance, and begins playing off the rival gangs off of one another. He changes sides at whim, and bargains for the greatest offering of money. His skills as a samurai are displayed when he first arrives in town, and his abilities are lauded, and the head of each gang vies for the samurai's attention, and for the chance to win the war.

Kurosawa's love of the widescreen format (tohoscope is used here - the branded system - like technoscope/vitascope et al. - for Japan's Toho studios that Kurosawa was working under), is obvious, and he uses it incredibly well. The incredible widescreen compositions are a beauty to behold, enhanced by black and white photography and the cinematography of Kazuo Miyagawa. Kurosawa was also a master of atmosphere, from character tensions to the more ethereal: Capturing feudal hostilities in western genre iconographic imagery, the opposing groups standing at each end of the street, Kurosawa adds the consistent movement of the wind moving the autumnal leaves - this is the kind of detail that heightens the visual experience.

Kurosawa's influence is undisputed (George Lucas - living off his one idea as he does - was hugely influenced), his style and storytelling genius would be hard not to homage - or "borrow" from. His imagery alone stand as fundamentally beautiful, the compositions' mis-en-scene holding the story together, making it believable and in fact becomes the films foundation - you could easily watch the film with the sound off, and still become totally absorbed in the story. With a genuine sense of humour (very black humour consequently), the film shows its intentions as a funny story about the foolish nature of war, in a diminishing world of tradition and the coming of modernity, with all of its machinery.


Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Toshirô Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yôko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada
Country: Japan

Rating: *****

Marc Ivamy