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Yojimbo

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This article is about the 1961 Japanese film. For Yojimbo, see Yojimbo (disambiguation).
用心棒
Yojimbo
Directed byAkira Kurosawa
Written byRyuzo Kikushima
Akira Kurosawa
Produced byRyuzo Kikushima
Akira Kurosawa
Tomoyuki Tanaka
StarringToshirō Mifune
Tatsuya Nakadai
Yôko Tsukasa
Isuzu Yamada
CinematographyKazuo Miyagawa
Takao Saito
Music byMasaru Satō
Distributed byToho Company Ltd.
Release dates
JapanApr 25, 1961
Running time
110 min.
LanguageJapanese

Yojimbo (Japanese: 用心棒, Yōjinbō) is a 1961 jidaigeki (period drama) film by Akira Kurosawa. It tells the story of a ronin (masterless samurai), portrayed by Toshirō Mifune, who arrives in a small town where competing crime lords make their money from gambling. The ronin convinces each crime lord to hire him as protection from the other. By careful political maneuvering and the use of his sword, he brings peace, but only by encouraging both sides to wipe each other out in bloody battles. The title of the film translates as 'bodyguard'. The ronin calls himself Kuwabatake Sanjuro (meaning "Mulberry Field thirty-year-old"), which he seems to make up while looking at a mulberry field by the town. Thus, "Sanjuro" can be viewed as the original "Man with No Name" concept, made famous in the Clint Eastwood-Sergio Leone collaborations.

Inspirations

File:Yojimbo shot.jpg
Toshirō Mifune as a lone hero.

The film's look and themes were in part inspired by the western film, in particular the films of John Ford. The characters - the taciturn loner and the helpless townsfolk needing a protector - are reminiscent of western archetypes, and the cinematography mimics conventional shots in western films such as that of the lone hero in a wide shot, facing an enemy or enemies from a distance while the wind kicks up dust between the two.

Kurosawa stated that a major source for the plot was the film noir classic The Glass Key (1942), an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 1931 novel. In particular, the scene where the hero is captured by the villains and tortured before he escapes is copied almost shot for shot from The Glass Key. However, it has been noted that the overall plot of Yojimbo is actually much closer to that of another Hammett novel, Red Harvest (1929). Kurosawa scholar David Desser and film critic Manny Farber, among others, state categorically that Red Harvest was the inspiration for the film; however, other scholars, such as Donald Richie, believe the similarities are coincidental.[1] 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.

Cast

Production

Many of the actors in Yojimbo had worked with Kurosawa before and after, especially Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura and Tatsuya Nakadai.

File:Toshiro.jpg
Toshirō Mifune as the nameless protagonist of Yojimbo.

At one point the hero, beaten, disarmed and left for dead, recovers in a small hut where he practices with his throwing knife by pinning a fluttering leaf. This effect was created by reversing the film: in reality, the leaf was pinned, the knife yanked away by a wire, and the leaf blown away.

Influence

Both in Japan and the West, Yojimbo had a considerable influence on various forms of entertainment.

Kurosawa directed a companion piece to Yojimbo in 1962, entitled Sanjuro, in which Mifune returns as the ronin, who keeps his "given name" Sanjuro (meaning "Thirtysomething") but he takes a different "surname" (in both films, he takes his surname from the plants he happens to be looking at when asked his name).

In 1964, Yojimbo was remade as A Fistful of Dollars, a spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first appearance as the Man with No Name. Leone and his production company failed to secure the remake rights to Kurosawa's film, resulting in a lawsuit that delayed Fistful's release in North America for three years. In Yojimbo, the protagonist defeats a man with a gun, when he carries only a knife and a sword; in the equivalent scene in Fistful, Eastwood's pistol-wielding character survives being shot by a rifle by hiding an iron plate under his clothes to serve as a shield against bullets.

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. Although Mifune is clearly not playing the same man (his name is Sasso, and his personality and background are different in many key respects), the movie's title and some of its content do intend to suggest the image of the two iconic Jidaigeki characters confronting each other. Incident at Blood Pass, made in the same year, stars Mifune in a role similar to that of Yojimbo.

Last Man Standing (1996), a prohibition era gangster thriller, directed by Walter Hill and starring Bruce Willis, is an officially authorized remake of Yojimbo.

The Sharp End, a military science fiction novel by David Drake, is an adaptation of Yojimbo with a team of soldiers taking the place of the solitary warrior.

The anime series Kaze no Yojimbo (2001; literally Bodyguard of the Wind), produced by Kurosawa Productions retells the story of the original film 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 are added to expand it into a 25-episode TV series and to distinguish it from Kurosawa's film.

The PlayStation 2 game Way of the Samurai has many elements heavily inspired by Yojimbo. In that game, the player takes on the role of a wandering samurai who drifts into a small town caught between warring factions. In the game, the player can align himself with any of the factions, can remain neutral, or can be completely amoral, and fight against anyone and everyone he encounters. The path the player takes determines the outcome of the storyline and the ending of the game, however, to get the "best" ending, the player ultimately will align himself with both gangs and play both sides in order to free the townspeople from oppression. There is also a point in the storyline where the player, armed with only his swords, may have to fight the town's sheriff, who carries a pistol.

Another PlayStation 2 game, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, features characters with very similar costumes, features, and behaviors. A large amount of the enemy characters stand and scratch their chins in the exact manner as Toshiro Mifune does constantly throughout the film. The most obvious character reference is Tatsuya Nakadai/Unosuke, the gunfighter. His name is never stated in the game however, he has the exact same visage from his pistol to the pink kimono and dark rings under his eyes.

Notes

  1. ^ Allen Barra, 'From Red Harvest to Deadwood', Salon (2005)

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yojimbo&oldid=198088359"