“Yojimbo” Japanese Theatrical Poster

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Ryuzo Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada, Daisuke Kat, Seizabur Kawazu, Takashi Shimura, Hiroshi Tachikawa, Yosuke Natsuki
Running Time: 110 min.

By Mairosu

One day I’ll stop frenetically rewatching Kurosawa, but I’ve got to make the most of it right now. After Ikiru, Stray Dog and Throne of Blood (which I’ll review somewhere later), I got to this little story about a down on his luck ronin (Mifune, who else) who stumbles upon a little town divided by two gangs. Seeing that the settlement is rife with corruption and evil men, our hero manages to cunningly make two sides slaughter each other before he himself finishes the job and purges the city of malcontent.

Sanjuro Kuwabatake (“Sanjuro” means “thirty years old”, “kuwabatake” “mullberry field”, put together, his name has as much meaning as, oh say, Clint Eastwood’s “man with no name”), the name Mifune’s character goes by, is a witty deconstruction of a samurai myth. The story takes part somewhere between the two key events in 19th century for the Japanese – the arrival of commodore Perry and ceasing of the Japanese isolation, and the restauration of the emperor and fall of the Tokugawa shogunate. So, judging by this timeline, times must be tough for samurai who are about to get out of business altogether. Sanjuro himself is probably a good example of someone who is about to hang his sword – he is dressed in rags, unshaven, and of relatively bad manners. He does sacrosanct things which real samurai who abides by bushido would never do : he openly offers his services for money, and later on in his film he even loses posession of his sword, which was apparently a very gross blunder for any bushido follower in medieval Japan. Just to further show how Sanjuro is clueless in those days of changing, there is a shot near the beginning in which he throws a stick high into the air on the crossroads and walks further down the path in which the sharper end of the stick pointed after the fall. Busy living, eh.

Once in town, Sanjuro quickly realises the climate when he spots a merry looking dog who is running down the street with someone’s severe hand in his mouth. He befriends the local innkeeper who gives him a lowdown of the situation – it’s basically two goons battling for supremacy over the local silk trade (or something along those lines), and the only one profiting from it right now is the local undertaker. Sanjuro tells him of his idea to purge the city himself – he is dubbed “mad” rather quick, but that of course won’t stop him.

So, he first goes and offers his services to Seibei, one of the goon leaders. To prove his salt, he hacks up a couple of Ushi-Tora (the other goon, obviously) henchmen, after a hilarious exchange with some of the thugs. (“You can kill me if you can !” screams a thug hotshot, “It’ll hurt” casually replies Sanjuro). That does it for Seibei who after mucho haggling strikes a deal with Sanjuro, but later his evil wife (again, an evil wife) tells him how he’s grossly overpaying and how they’d better kill him and get all their money back after Ushi-Tora is vanquished. This doesn’t go unnoticed by Sanjuro who was eavesdropping, so when the encounter is about to happen, he just decides to call it quits – in the middle of battlefield before the encounter. So he casually walks to the other side, and just yells, “I rejected your enemy !”, climbs on an old watchtower and decides to kick back and enjoy the show.

But alas, alas. Just as they’re ready to beat the living daylights out of each other, both sides are informed that an important inspector arrived into town (a familiar face, that of Takashi Shimura) and that all fighting must cease while he’s there. Sanjuro’s plan thus backfired, but he’s got more plotting in him left. He offers his services to Ushi-Tora now, who is soon accompanied by his returning brother Unosuke, a very slimy looking fellow who wields a revolver (clear sign of a dishonourable cad between the “noble warriors”, wielding a firearm). Unosuke doesn’t trust Sanjuro, and after Sanjuro concocts a little plot to free Ushi-Tora’s prize hostage, he pays him a visit and, following a brief altercation we don’t see, takes him prisoner.

Now Sanjuro is a captive at Ushi-Tora’s place, and he’s also beaten quite badly. But, our hero escapes in a cunning manner (I won’t give this away), and then retreats to an old hut to restore his powers. Meanwhile, Unosuke and Ushi-Tora, temporarily relieved of Sanjuro’s presence and with inspector out of town (they rigged a murder in the next city so the inspector could go there on a short note), just go ahead and massacre Seibei’s clan – which clears the stage for Sanjuro’s comeback and a final showdown, in which he of course slashes the bad guys in few quick swings of a sword and releases the old innkeeper who was held hostage by the remaining thugs. His work done, he casually walks away from the fray, ready to purge more cities and earn more money elsewhere.

Yojimbo, albeit dubbed often as an action film, is not exactly action packed and the action scenes themselves are nothing completely special – what really irked me was that there was no sound effects when Sanjuro wielded his sword – no “swissshhh” and “kapwinggg” to be heard, man, that’s annoying innit. As such, this film is more of a social satire in samurai garments, and its construction, narrative and the plot served as a blueprint for the action movie industry of the future. Itself a (uncredited) reworking of a Dashiel Hammett story “Red Harvest” (the bloke who wrote Maltese Falcon), Yojimbo was later copied shot-by-shot more less (again, uncredited) by Sergio Leone for his Fistfull of Dollars, and more recently by Walter Hill (this time with proper mention of Akira Kurosawa and co.) for Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis. Still, Yojimbo retains much of its charm even 40 years after, thanks to a towering performance by Mifune who is a complete package – a fighter, a joker, a schemer, a glutton, a philosopher, and whatnot. And tell me one thing – haven’t you all immediately thunk of that scene in which Ben Kenobi slices off a thug’s hand in the sleazy spaceport cantina after he boasted to him that he’s a dangerous convict criminal when Sanjuro gives the same treatment of one of Ushi-Tora’s men ?

But eh, I enjoyed it. On to the sequel I guess.

Mairosu’s Rating: 7.5/10