Yojinbo (1961) Reviews

• Kurosawa.

  Peach-21999-09-26

  Only a handful of directors know atmosphere the way Akira Kurosawa does, only a handful. Yojinbo opens with a tracking shot of a ronin samurai walking down a dusty road. The camera wisely stays behind the samurai, played by Toshiro Mifune, so we cannot see his face or expressions. This samurai is desperate. Mifune has no master and no money. Kurosawa doesn't let you see his desperation, instead focusing on the back of his head and his profile to set up one of the most memorable characters in cinema history. The film has been copied many times, its practically the most influential film of the modern action genre. Yojinbo isn't action packed however, Kurosawa takes his time setting up characters and plot. The fact that this masterless samurai has deep compassion for strangers is different than most modern action movies alone. Toshiro Mifune is magical in the lead role. His presence is felt all throughout the film even when he isn't on camera. All film buffs should watch this film, it is a perfect example of a director and actor with confidence in their craft.

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• Sensational!

  Tigereyes2001-11-11

  If I had to choose only one movie for film students to learn from, this would be it. Other films may be more profound, or their imagery more groundbreaking, but this one is so tightly constructed that nothing - not a frame, word, or gesture - is extraneous. Toshiro Mifune, one of the world's most charismatic actors, is perfection as a tough loner of a samurai who takes it upon himself to clean up a town corrupted by two gambling clans. Swirling through and around him is a story that is both technically flawless and profoundly moving. Kurosawa meticulously infuses every detail with meaning; there's a purpose behind every shot, and aspiring directors should pay close attention (why is the camera slightly tilted? why are there concubines in the background?). His economy of style was never more amazing; watch as the samurai rides into town, and the director establishes the atmosphere with exactly one jaw-dropping shot. And the story is equally well-crafted, with no plot holes and no inconsistencies. A wonderful tale that rolls beautifully from start to finish. See it, see it, see it!!

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• A Potpourri of Vestiges Review: Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune - The undisputed masters of their respective arts

  murtaza_mma2009-10-27

  Yojimbo is a timeless masterpiece; elegant, enigmatic and taut; one of the best and the most influential of the action movies, and a delectable feast to the lovers of the genre. It is the most sought-after of the Akira Kurosawa's movies, shamelessly imitated on multiple occasions – the most infamous being 'A Fistful of Dollars' by Sergio Leone. Yojimbo is a delightful addition to an unending list of avant-garde movies made by the Oriental master. It is as superior to any of the movies that it has inspired as a master is to his artless apprentice. I have had the privilege of watching five Kurosawa movies before watching Yojimbo viz. Seven Samurai, Ran, Dersu Uzala, Rashomon, and High & Low and each left me mesmerized, but in a completely different manner than the last. In my past reviews I have repeatedly committed an invidious blunder of failing to acknowledge the ginormous contribution that Toshiro Mifune made in Kurosawa's colossal success. I would be remiss again if I fail to testify the fact that Yojimbo is more synonymous with Mifune than it is with Kurosawa and anyone who has had the privilege of watching it wouldn't want me to budge even by a slightest degree. The role of 'Sanjuro', though demanding, can be any performer's dream, but a slight lack of proficiency or commitment on his part can serve as a volte-face, transforming it into his biggest nightmare. I don't think that anyone but Kurosawa is competent enough to judge Toshiro Mifune's talent as a performer and so I would like to quote an excerpt from his biography: "Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three. He put forth everything directly and boldly with a great sense of timing. And yet with all his quickness, he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities". In Yojimbo, Toshiro Mifune incredibly outdoes himself with a portrayal that can be excruciatingly hard to be described in words. Mifune is crafty, cunning, capricious and yet seemingly nonchalant as the ingeniously disingenuous ronin, a portrayal overwhelmed with so many contrasting attributes that it revolutionized the very concept of an anti-hero in the world of cinema. Sanjuro is a cross between a wolf and a sheep, a guardian and a usurper, a misanthrope and an altruist, a demon and an angel, a libertine and an ascetic, a fiend and a beloved, a mercenary and a messiah and that's what makes this portrayal singular and incredibly magnificent. Mifune has meticulously taken care of even the slightest gestures and the subtle changes in mannerisms during the portrayal; be it Sanjuro's perpetually grinned countenance or his nonchalant disposition. Each triviality and nuance evinces certain details that are hard to be expressed even through expatiation. Despite Sanjuro's rapidly changing expressions and his frenzied demeanor, Mifune always seems to be in absolute control. Yojimbo is a well etched, taut narrative with a dark comical look that makes it one of a kind. Yojimbo neither appears to be superficial nor superfluous and not a moment of it is extraneous. Human values and emotions are ubiquitously similar irrespective of the cultural and the social divide between the peoples of the world and hence everyone can savour the thought-provoking movies of Kurosawa; even those who are daunted by the handicap of using subtitles can relish a movie like Yojimbo as a silent movie (because of it being so visually descriptive like the Charlie Chaplin movies). The plot of the movie is simple and may even appear to be commonplace owing to the countless imitations that it has inspired, but it is the rapport between Kurosawa and Mifune (undoubtedly the best director-actor pair of all time) that makes it so especial and unique. A penniless ronin (samurai without a master) enters a town rotten with schism (Akira Kurosawa challenged his assistant directors to come up with an image for the film to let Sanjuro know he was entering a bad town. Eventually, Kurosawa himself came up with the idea of the dog carrying the human hand). The two gangs are sporadically involved in sanguinary duels resulting in mass slaughter. The ronin demonstrates his skills by slaying two members of one of the gangs. After asseverating his supremacy, he joins the other group for a substantial sum, but backs out just when a decisive battle was about to begin. He then climbs the nearby bell tower as a vantage for himself and watches with rapturous glee the bravado of the pusillanimous gang members disappearing in thin air as they are overcome by trepidation. They lunge and retreat on multiple occasions without making an actual contact before getting interrupted by the news of an inspector coming for an official inspection. The duel is postponed indefinitely to everyone's delight. In the meantime, Sanjuro lets them know that his services are open to bidding, inducing a tussle to acquire his services while he continues to act as an instigator further intensifying the rabid rivalry between the two groups. But soon the tables are turned and this child's play transforms into a moment of reckoning for the ronin as he finds himself haplessly pitted against the surviving gang. He is captured and brutally assaulted, but he manages to escape from some local help. This culminates in one of the best climatic endings of all time as Sanjuro single-handedly obliterates the whole gang, emancipating the town from anarchy and barbarism. It's a must watch for film students, action movie lovers, and especially those who want to acquaint themselves with the eccentrically brilliant works of the oriental master without exposing themselves to his more recondite works like Shichinin no samurai, Rashomon, Ikiru, Akahige, Ran and countless others. An absolute gem: 10/10 http://www.apotpourriofvestiges.com/

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• "You don't mind if I kill all of you?" "What? Kill me if you can!" "It'll hurt."

  Quinoa19842003-12-24

  Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo is a not too long, not too short action film that uses its action with just the right touches of voracity and excitement, and in the backdrop is also a sense of humor to the process. If I had to recommend a Kurosawa film to someone who's never seen one before (and might be impatient to sit through the three and a half hour Seven Samurai, or might not get the non-linear structure of Rashomon), I'd put this one in their hands to try out. Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune is terrific as Sanjuro Kuwabatake, a drifter of a samurai who stumbles upon a town with an assorted cast of characters, with a split between two gangs. One of the gangsters, Unosuke (Nakadai), is the only one in town; it seems, with a gun. At first Sanjuro plays each side, but when he gets beaten roughly by whom he was "protecting", he realizes the fun's over, and it's time to fight back. Much has been made about how Sergio Leone took Kurosawa's story and characters (most in particular being a rogue from out of town) and made them into his breakthrough Fistful of Dollars- Kurosawa even sued Leone over the story rights. But to those who wonder whether Yojimbo is 'better' than Fistful or vice versa need to remember one of two things- Kurosawa took the story from Dashiell Hammett's gangster novel Red Harvest, so neither filmmaker is making something really original; and that since each film is made in a different continent, and with the slightest different sensibilities about its characters. For one thing in Yojimbo guns are scarcer than in Fistful, and there's a treatment Kurosawa has with his actors that sets it apart from the small town western scope of Leone's weapons and actors. So each film (noticeably) carries its own kind of visual style while working in a similar plot structure. In other words, it's kind of like comparing apples and oranges picked in the same farm (if that makes at all sense). Overall, Yojimbo on its own is a lean, cool Japanese crime/action film, helmed by a master, and featuring a number of highlights to look forward to on multiple viewings. Some of those include: the scene inside Seibei's brothel (with the women dancing and singing), Masaru Sato's wonderful musical orchestrations, Mifune's curiously low-key and rough performance (which did and didn't serve as inspiration to Clint), and a climax that is up there with one of Kurosawa's finest battles. A+

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• The epitome of cinema cool.

  Ben_Cheshire2004-02-06

  If you ever watched Pulp Fiction and thought: movie cool was born here, or maybe you saw any single Sergio Leone movie and thought: this guy invented movie-cool (if you haven't, i thoroughly recommend it - Kill Bill is nothing to his Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Once Upon a Time in the West), then experience Yojimbo, or The Bodyguard. Kurosawa's camera sits behind Toshiro Mifune's man-with-no-name, inviting us to look up at the back of his head as he walks the earth, inviting us to be in awe of this man. And as he walks, super-cool walking-the-earth music plays. Later on, when he's taunted and asked to prove himself, he slices a guy's arm off and plays the petty, money-grabbing rival factions in the town he wanders into off each other. If you have it in your mind that a guy called Kurosawa couldn't make movies that would impress you, that the cultural gap would be too great - be assured that Kurosawa's movies are rife with Western values. Sure, they are rife with Japanese values (i am told), but Kurosawa had a great appreciation of Western culture. He based many of his movies on Western texts, like Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, or American gangster fiction and film. Yojimbo is one of the latter - inspired by the Dashiell Hammet novel Red Harvest (Hammett's novel The Maltese Falcon was put onscreen moment for moment by John Huston in the movie of the same name which immortalised Humphrey Bogart). Actually, the history of the story of the lone wolf, the wanderer with a weapon, who rides into town to play off two warring factions against each other - is quite a story itself. Dashiell Hammett, an American, wrote a novel with an American private eye as the stranger. In 1961, Akira Kurosawa transposed this story to medieval Japan, after the fall of a dynasty, where a Samurai finds himself with no place to go (at the beginning, we see him throw a branch up in the air and walk the direction it falls), and no master to serve. A bodyguard with no-one to protect. In 1964, Sergio Leone transposed the screenplay of Yojimbo (nearly word for word) to the spanish desert, and he brought along a young television actor named Clint Eastwood, and together they revolutionised the western with Fistfull of Dollars, and created an entire genre, the Spaghetti Western, which sported among its attributes a gritty, desolate landscape, and a cynical, postmodern lack-of-values ideology (traditional American westerns had quite plush landscapes and were always black and white (good and evil) in their value system. Despite the massive influence of Fistfull of Dollars, it pales in comparison to both its predecessor Yojimbo, and its sequals, For a Few Dollars More and The Good the Bad and the Ugly. But still, both Yojimbo and Fistful are iconic movies, and very cool movies. With cool music, a cool anti-hero, a fun script, and a visually spectacular canvas of an image, painted by the eye of an artist (it is said that Kurosawa storyboarded his movies in full-scale paintings), Yojimbo is one of the coolest movies ever made.

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