Review of Yojimbo (1961) by Ryan V — 12 Mar 2017

Toshiro Mifune plays a ronin who wanders into a small town torn asunder by a gang war. A display of his skill as a warrior causes both factions to seek to recruit him, but the samurai is more interested in playing both sides against the middle.

The plot of Yojimbo is standard issue, but director Akira Kurosawa films this movie with an energetic mobility and darkly-comedic tone that transcends genre. While it does borrow quite a bit from the Westerns of John Ford, the new aesthetic terrains it explores gives little cause to wonder why Yojimbo was one of the most influential films on the Spaghetti Western genre that would soon come to prominence (For instance, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars is an unauthorized remake of this movie).