ma-cortes
Set in Japan , 1860 , at a little town that is a den of wrongs . Sanjuro, a wandering samurai enters a rural town in nineteenth century Japan and he finds himself the location run by two parties commanded by Ushitora and Seibe and their hired thugs . The samurái sells his activities to both parts with devasting resulting for all ; as he then sets out to rid the town of all these ominous people .The noisy town is full of injustices , inequity , violence and killings , due to the hordes of gamblers and murderers that inhabit it. After learning from the innkeeper that the town is divided between two mobsters , he plays one side off against the other . As 2 clans vying for political power bid on the services of a silent masterless Samurai , a quiet Ronin . His efforts are complicated by the arrival of the wily Unosuke who often uses a bloody gun . There is a massacre , but the samurai runs away with the help of the innkeeper ; but while recuperating at a nearby temple, he learns of an abduction carried out by Unosuke, and goes back to the town to take on enemies .
This is a magnificent picture by Akira Kurosawa starred by his ordinary actor Toshiro Mifune , being his international breakthrough one . Yokimbo , the picture blends drama , violent fights , emotion , slaughters with high body-count and results to be pretty entertaining as well as thought provoking . It is incredibly detailed vision in its own right , as the impact of the action and combats on this trail-blazing adventure film opened the floodgates for the huge numbers of samurai films and subsequent Spaghetti Westerns that made fortunes for their producers in the sixties and early seventies . Dramatically staged sword-plays occur on and off throughout the plot . The known film Leone¨For a fistful of dollars¨is mainly cribbed from this Japanese samurái action classic ; however , some reviewers tell this Yojinbo bears little resemblance to Sergio Leone film . Very good acting by Toshiro Mifune as a Samurái who attempts to play the two warlords off against each other . This one made an international star out of Toshiro Mifune . At the beginning , Sanjuro seems to be a good Samurai , as being beaten after he reunites an abducted woman with her husband and son, then massacres his father's opponents. As well as Tatsuya Nakadai , still acting , as Unosuke, the son of one of the gangsters, who owns a revolver.This fiercely-charging , uncompromising pictures was compellingly directed by Akira Kurosawa and being exhibited with subtitles or dubbed .After working in a wide range of genres, Kurosawa made this awesome film . The previous years saw the low-key , touching Living (1952) , the epic The seven samurais (1954), the barbaric , fascinating Shakespeare adaptation Throne of blood (1957) , a Macbeth's version , a masterful rendition that transports the story to Medieval Japan , and a fun pair of samurai movies Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962) , and Rashomon , often credited as the reason the Academy created the "Best Foreign Film" category. When this film was released internationally to rave reviews, many speculated that Akira Kurosawa was influenced by Citizen Kane (1941) in the element of flashbacks that ultimately provide conflicting accounts of events. However, Kurosawa didn't even see Orson Welles's film until several years after . Rashomon won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and first revealed the richness of Japanese cinema to the West.Yet , there was a quieter side to Kurosawa's nature , expressed most succinctly on Living , The Lower Depths and especially the medical drama Red Beard . After a lean period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, though, Kurosawa attempted suicide . Other important movies were : The idiot based on Feodor Dostowieski , Drunken Angel , Scandal , A quiet duel , Tiger's tale , High and low . He survived, and made a small, personal, low-budget picture with Dodes'ka-den (1970), a larger-scale Russian co-production Dersu Uzala (1975) an epic tale of adventure in turn-of-the-century Siberia and , with the help of admirers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, the samurai tale Kagemusha (1980), which Kurosawa described as a dry run for Ran (1985), an epic adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear" . He continued to work into his eighties with the more personal Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990), and Madadayo (1993) and Rhapsody in August . Kurosawa's films have always been more popular in the West than in his native Japan, where reviewers have viewed his adaptations of Western genres and authors with suspicion , but he's revered by American and European film-makers, one of his least well-known films but most agreeable pictures is The Bad Sleep Well , a transposition of an Ed McBain detective novel , being remade many his pictures such as The seven samurais (1954), as The magnificent seven (1960),The Hidden Fortress (1958), as Star Wars (1977)as Yojimbo (1961) as For a fistful of dollars by Sergio Leone (1964), in fact Kurosawa's style was the biggest single influence on the Spaghetti Western sub-genre ; as his Samurai 'Western's were copied not only in America but also in Italy .
hrkepler
Very few men are cooler than Clint Eastwood, Toshiro Mifune is one of them. And very few directors can build up scene like Akira Kurosawa, Sergio Leone is not one of them (pretty close though). 'Yojimbo' is a film that is imitated (or remade) many times, but never as cleverly. It is not simple samurai action piece, but it actually explores much philosophical themes. Toshiro Mifune is a samurai who travels around the country until he reaches into town that is ruled by two rival families. The samurai sees the situation as an easy way to make some money, as he pours more fuel into the fire with doing small deeds to both families. Although we learn that the samurai is not only greedy swordsman, but his real motivations can be interpreted many ways by the end of the film. 'Yojimbo' might not be Kurosawa's best (I guess it can be debated) or deepest, but it's definitely his most entertaining ones.
suspiria77
Way back towards the end of the '90s, I saw this film on IFC and it was my very first Kurosawa film. It came on at about 10 in the morning on a Saturday, and I stopped because the film looked so distinctive. The widescreen, the black and white, and Toshiro Mifune just looked so cool standing there. It wasn't far into the movie, but after being mesmerized by what I had seen I immediately looked online to where I could buy it (in widescreen, of course, which was not a given back then) and watched it about ten times within a week. Not long after I discovered Sanjuro and all of the rest of the Kurosawa/Mifune masterpieces. It's truly amazing to watch this and notice how current it feels, how the pacing is perfect, how funny it is, how sudden the violence takes place, and the overwhelming sense of danger that constantly envelops the entire film.It's brilliant, it's fun, and it's always entertaining, it's simply a masterpiece of filmmaking.
grantss
A samurai, Sanjuro Kuwabatake, finds himself in a town run by two warlords, Ushitora and Seibei. The town is a den of inequity, not only due to the warlords and their hired thugs, but due to the hordes of gamblers that inhabit it. The samurai sets out to rid the town of all these pestilences, his plan being to play the two warlords off against each other.Excellent movie by famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Clever, unpredictable plot with some great twists along the way. Good character development and some great action scenes. The only blemish is that it is difficult to figure out which characters fit into the mix in what way. This is often heightened by Kurosawa introducing an important character out of the blue, with no background. They're often linked to the story via another character, a character who we also don't know much about, if anything at all. So some of the character-specific stories were a bit hard to follow.An influential movie in that Sergio Leone used this as inspiration for his spaghetti westerns - a Fistful of Dollars in particular. You can see it in some of the fight scenes: the slow, deliberate build-up, the music the Mexican standoff. A Fistful of Dollars is even regarded as a remake of Yojimbo.
