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Yojimbo & Sanjuro

Yojimbo is a 1961 period drama movie by Akira Kurosawa. It tells the story of a ronin (masterless samurai), who arrives in a small town where competing crime lords make their money from gambling. The ronin, who calls himself 'Sanjuro' (meaning 'thirtysomething') 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 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.

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.

Kurosawa stated that a major source for the plot was the film noir classic The Glass Key (1942), an adaption of Dashiell Hammett's 1931 novel; the scenes of the samurai's brutal beating are copied practically shot-for-shot from that film. However, it has been suggested that the plot of Yojimbo is actually closer to another Hammett novel, Red Harvest (1932).

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

Yojimbo had a considerable influence on subsequent cinema, in both Japan and the West.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Yojimbo & Sanjuro".

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