Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Akiri Kurosawa’s 1962 film Yojimbo ("The Bodyguard") comes with impressive credentials. On the Internet Database poll of most popular films, it ranks 112th, which makes it 14th among non-English language films. It is typically listed among the top four or five films by the great Japanese director and some reviewers even claim it as his preeminent masterpiece. I cannot personally rank it higher than fourth among Kurosawa films, though I’ll be the first to concede that its historical importance is even greater than its artistic value.
Historical Background: As every review of this film must state, Yojimbo has an important place in film history for multiple reasons. One is that it both emulated earlier Hollywood films and was itself later emulated by Hollywood. It clearly pays homage to and satirizes Hollywood westerns of the 1950’s but also owes much of its temperament and visual style to noir style crime stories. Hollywood later remade Yojimbo not once but twice – once as the Western, A Fistfull of Dollars (1964), starring Clint Eastwood as the “Man with No Name” and later as the crime story Last Man Standing starring Bruce Willis. Yojimbo is also extraordinarily important for its influence on multicultural interchange. It took Hollywood genre but applied a distinctly Japanese cultural emphasis. Then, later, the remake of Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars, became the first so-called spaghetti Western genre, under the Italian name Per Un Pugno di Dollar. Small world!
Yojimbo was produced near the end of Kurosawa’s most productive period, a twelve year span from 1950 to 1962 that saw the creation of Rashômon (1950), Ikiru (1952), The Seven Samurai (1954), The Throne of Blood (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961), and Sanjuro (1962) as well as at least another five films.
The Story: The story takes place in Japan in 1860. It is a time of social upheaval following the collapse of the Tokugawa dynasty. The protagonist, Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune), is a ronin (an unemployed samurai), surviving as best he can with nothing but his sword and his wits. At a crossroad, he tosses a stick into the air and allows its position when it falls to point the direction he will follow. He briefly pauses when he encounters a young man arguing with his father. The young man wants to join one of the gangs in town while his father wants him to remain on the farm. After the young man runs off, Sanjuro stops at the farmer's home for water and gathers further intelligence about the town by the conversation between the farmer and his wife. Strolling into the tightly boarded-up town, Sanjuro encounters a dog carrying the severed hand of a man in his mouth. Sanjuro is beginning to anticipate a demand here for his services as a mercenary warrior!
Sanjuro ignores the townspeople who gaze at him from windows or come out in person to size him up. He encounters a officious little man who wants to offer the samurai’s services to the local bosses for a small commission. Ignoring him as well, Sanjuro heads to the inn where he encounters Gonji (Eijiro Tono), a Sake merchant. Gonji further elucidates the local situation. Two feuding factions have split the loyalties of the town right down the middle and the two are locked in a fight to the death for control of the economy of the town. One faction is headed by Seibei (Seizaburo Kawazu), who is dominated by his assertive and vicious wife, Orin (Isuzu Yamada). The other side is under the control of Ushi-Tora (Kyu Sazanka). Ushi-Tora has two brothers, one of whom, Unosuke (Tatsuya Nakadai), poses a special menace because he is the only person in the town in possession of a gun – a revolver. The clever and sly Unosuke is also the only person in town who can match wits with Sanjuro. By Gonji’s perceptive reckoning, almost everyone in town is worthless. Sanjuro begins to sense an opportunity to make some money by offering his services to both sides and playing them off against each other.
Kurosawa resorts to black humor repeatedly. One running gag is the business of the cooper, who makes the coffins for those killed in this on-going conflict. Gonji is tired of all of the cooper’s banging of nails but the cooper is delighted with the prospect of renewed violence.
Sanjuro first offers his services to Seibei and before settling on his wages offers a little demonstration of his skills. He ambles down the dusty street toward Ushi-Tora’s gang until several emerge to confront him. Three thugs in particular confront Sanjuro, one saying, “Kill me if you can.” Sanjuro replies wryly, “It’ll hurt!” Quickly enough, Sanjuro makes good on his bluster, dispatching the three in less than five seconds. He then returns to bargain with Seibei, who initially offers one ryo, but is easily bartered up to fifty. Sanjuro, however, overhears Orin instructing her son to kill Sanjuro from behind once the fight with Ushi-Tora’s gang has been won. At noon, the two gangs meet in the street for a confrontation, but Sanjuro announces that he refuses to fight and returns his down payment to Orin. He now coolly climbs a wooden tower to watch the battle at a safe distance. Both sides show little stomach for actual combat.
The rest of the plot consists of Sanjuro’s manipulations of the two factions, his near self-destruction as a result of a moment of compassion, and the relentless revenge that he exacts in the end. You’ll need to turn to the film for further details.
Themes and Deficiencies: Although Sanjuro is a kind of superhero as a warrior, his morality is ambiguous at best. He makes his living by killing, kills at times for no better reason than to advertise his skills, and amuses himself by manipulating the various (admittedly nasty lowlife) factions into mutual annihilation. On the other hand, he does exhibit real compassion for a damsel in distress and for the downtrodden noncombatants of the town. My personal perspective in relation to this story is closest to that of the Gonji, the Sake seller, when he says to Sanjuro, “Everybody’s crazy! But you’re even crazier!” Idiots killing one another out of stupidity is crazy! But inciting idiots to kill one another for amusement and/or profit is even crazier! Contrary to most reviewers of this film, I don’t empathize with Sanjuro, which is undoubtedly why I don’t rate this film as highly as do many others.
Yojimbo serves up neither the deep issues inherent in Rashômon or Ikiru nor the epic grandeur of The Seven Samurai or Ran. Nevertheless, if it did something else especially well, I would overlook those comparisons. In my view, however, this is one kind of film that Hollywood does better than the rest of the world. This “oriental western” is less effective, in my book, than the best American westerns and Clint Eastwood, for me, is a far more empathetic antihero than is Mifune as Sanjuro.
My other problem with this film is that much of what is apparently supposed to pass for humor strikes me as just plain ridiculous. For example, when Sanjuro is up in the wooden tower watching the posturing of the two gangs, we see each gang alternately advancing and retreating – apparently to illustrate their inherent cowardice. The same statement could have been made more effectively with a great deal more subtlety. Or, in another example, when Seibei announces that they will attack at noon while serving Sake to Sanjuro, we see his hand shaking uncontrollably and the Sake bottle rattling against Sanjuro’s cup. This kind of overstatement is for me a real turn-off. It’s neither funny nor believable.
Production Values: In Yojimbo, Kurosawa delivers the same exceptional quality of cinematography that we have come to know and love from his many other great films. His multi-layered shot construction, made possible by his hallmark deep focus technique, is once again fully in evidence. Kurosawa’s skillful camera placements are also there, such as when we watch the street fight between the two gangs from essentially the same vantage point as Sanjuro.
I have commented adversely on Mifune as an actor in some other reviews, but I take no issue with his performance here. In fact, this performance by Mifune is by far his best among the films I’ve seen in which he appears and certainly the highlight of Yojimbo. Torshiro Mifune won the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival for his performance in this film. Most of the other characters, excepting Eijiro Tono as the Sake merchant and Tatsuya Nakadai as Unosuke are engaging in the same kind of Japanese over-acting that is my one main complaint about most Kurosawa films.
Bottom-Line: Personally, I’d rather watch Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Outlaw Josey Wales, or Pale Rider, but those Eastwood roles might have never happened were it not for Yojimbo. Keep in mind that this comes from someone who generally prefers foreign-fare to Hollywood’s offerings. This is not about subtitle phobia. Yojimbo has Kurosawa’s great production qualities and a performance by Mifune to please even those not solidly in the Mifune fan club. What is also has is all-too-much dumb Japanese overacting in the lesser roles and too much violence for no better purpose than amusement. Yojimbo is in black-and-white and in Japanese with English subtitles. The running time of 110 minutes. It is unrated but I see no problem with it for age 13 and up.
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In director Akira Kurosawa's comedic YOJIMBO a masterless samurai Sanjuro Toshir Mifune wanders into a town divided by two warring clans. After displa...More at Family Video
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