Review of Yojimbo (1961) by Max L — 18 Sep 2013

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

A wandering ronin comes across a town torn apart by two criminal gangs, and decides to end the town's trouble by playing them both against each other.

Now, I'll be tackling this movie in perhaps a very different way. I saw "A Fistful of Dollars" (the spaghetti western remake) first, so I couldn't help comparing the two as I was watching it.

In terms of story, "A Fistful of Dollars" follows "Yojimbo" almost beat for beat. The key difference is the attitude of each movie. "Fistful of Dollars" plays it with much more humanity: you sympathise more with the law-abiding Baxter family. But in "Yojimbo", both sides are as corrupt as the other, so you can't help but agree with the samurai: the town would indeed be better off with both of them dead.

The samurai himself is a fascinating character, too. He seems completely uninterested in almost everything unless it involves violence. I especially love the scene early on where he gets both clans on the brink of battle and he just sits back to watch! :D.

By a certain point, the proceedings were just different enough for me to start to appreciate "Yojimbo" in its own right -- helped all the more by the fact that I felt as if I'd settled into the town environment.

Overall, this is an excellent tale of bringing balance to a savage community, and I certainly look forward to seeing it again when I don't have "Fistful of Dollars" on the mind.

My rating: 80%.