A lone fighter walks quietly down the town’s windswept main street. The townspeople cower behind closed doors and boarded up windows. The stranger is here with the self-appointed task of cleaning up what’s an extremely dirty town.
If this sounds like a classic Western, that’s because it almost is. But not quite. This is one of Japan’s great contributions to cinema, the inspiration for spaghetti Westerns and the introduction of a new kind of film hero. Sanjuro is the hero. Toshirô Mifune is the star. Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood went to school on this film.
Sanjuro isn’t a perfect-looking, perfect-behaving good-guy. He’s a grimy, toothpick chewing, constantly scratching, unemployed samurai warrior. It’s the 1860s and the social order has broken down. Sanjuro has no sense of direction until he throws a branch in the air and starts walking in the direction it’s pointing. That’s what leads him to the town.
The lone fighter quickly takes a liking to this place. The town has been taken over by two gangs, each positioning itself for a takeover. These thugs are brutal and without principle. Sanjuro sees great potential: two potential employers and an almost endless selection of scummy criminals he wouldn’t mind killing off. So he sticks around, watching the conflict brew.
Sanjuro is far brighter than the gang leaders and he’s the best sword fighter in town. He’s a hot commodity and soon as the scheming gangsters trying to outbid each other for his services. Eventually, the long-awaited bloodbath begins.
Yojimbo is at once a dark comedy and a morality play. Sanjuro might at first seem shiftless and unprincipled, but before long, he proves to be quite the opposite. Although the bad guys don’t figure it out until it’s almost too late, he’s a friend of the downtrodden non-combatants. Along the way, he exposes the stupidity, arrogance and corruption of the schemers and thugs.
Akira Kurosawa has created a gripping and highly entertaining film that makes brilliant use of the wide cinema screen. We see the combatants as each side surges forward from either edge of the screen, and then scurry back from the prospect of battle. Mifune is outstanding as Sanjuro, the unkempt but wise and cool samurai. His knowing glances are a highlight of almost every scene. He sees what we see, even if all those around him are too wrapped up in their avarice to see it.
