Yojimbo is a samurai movie from 1961, directed by the famed Akira Kurosawa, and now watched by yours truly. I finally finished it after stopping halfway through some time ago, and I wanted to give my thoughts. For the TLDR; Movie’s great, I have no complaints, go watch it, it’s free on the Internet Archive.
Now then…
Yojimbo is Japanese for ‘bodyguard,’ and this is the crux of the film. A wandering ronin ends up in a small town controlled by 2 warring gangs; Seibei, the mayor of the town who is allied with a silk merchant, and Ushitora, the former right-hand man of Seibei & ally to the sake brewer, who revolted after hearing that the mayor’s useless son will be in charge. Despite the intense hostilities, neither side has tried to make a move in destroying the competition, until the ronin – who calls himself Sanjuro – arrives. Seeing that there’s ‘a lot of men who deserve to die’ in this town, he devises a plan to cause chaos between Seibei & Ushitora so both sides fall, and the town can get some peace and quiet.
From the start, despite the very grim setting of an 1860’s small town where the law is a kiss-ass to the criminals, Yojimbo is a rather funny film. You won’t hear any laugh tracks, but the actors & actresses sell what is supposed to be serious, and what is supposed to be comedic. It’s also a very tense film, as the moment a sword is swung, that’s usually when someone just died.
Much of the story revolves around Sanjuro allying himself with either Seibei or Ushitora, taking their money or information, then using those to rile the other side up into a frenzy. In-between his deals with the town, he takes shelter in the bar of an old man, who begrudgingly hears him out & tries to convince the ronin to leave this mad place. The story soon escalates when Sanjuro learns a government official was killed in a town over; he captures the assassins, sells them to Seibei, then immediately tells Ushitora that Seibei got the assassins. This causes a swap to go bad, and for Sanjuro to risk his life for the wife of a farmer that was sold to the sake brewer by Ushitora. This rescue mission brings the two sides into all-out warfare, where things burn, Sanjuro gets his shit pushed in for betraying Ushitora so much, the Seibei family is slain, and the ronin returns days later to defeat the Ushitora family & finally bring peace to the small, bloody town.
Throughout the whole movie, it has this soundtrack I can only really describe as ‘making a wood block be a violin.’ It’s not bad at all though! I really like it, helps add levity to the moments that need it, and the way the melody gets slower as the movie nears the end & things have gotten serious is a very nice touch. Speaking of nice touches, the cinematography was really cool too! I can only imagine how much of a headache it was getting so many of those crowd shots just right. Not to mention the shots inside buildings – I wonder if that was an actual town they used, or just a set they made…
I am very much not a movie person, I’ll admit, but I completely get why A Fistful of Dollars got that lawsuit handed to them; Yojimbo is a really good movie, and I think you’d enjoy watching it if you want something old but gold. I should probably watch the sequel sometime...