The Sensai loved American pulp movies, especially Westerns, and was influenced heavily by them. IMDb even lists Dashiell Hammett’s novel “Red Harvest” as the uncredited source of “Yojimbo.” In the special “100 Greatest Movies of All Time” issue, Entertainment Weekly’s Peter Bonventre called “The Seven Samurai” “the greatest Western ever made.” He coyly adds “with amusing redundancy, Hollywood chose to remake ‘Samurai,’ six years later, as ‘The Magnificent Seven.’” “Yojimbo” was similarly honored with Leone’s “A Fistful of Dollars” and the Bruce Willis box office debacle “Last Man Standing.” The ronin is the hired gunfighter, the impotent town “official” is the sheriff, and the clans are feuding families or cattle interests. The silk industry is replaced by barbed wire and locomotives, while gambling is still, well, gambling. Of course some of the meaning is different. The Western is about civilization entering into where there is no civilization (once all the indigenous peoples were swept aside, that is). Because Japan has no frontier, the rogue samurai movie might be more about the shift between one civilization and the next.
But more than the old West was affected by Kurosawa. George Lucas is said to be a big fan. Not only does “Yojimbo” include many of the wipes beloved of the “Star Wars” series—that’s when a new scene quickly covers up an old scene by rolling on from screen-left or screen-right—but the arm severed by Obi-Wan Kenobi originates here, as does Han Solo’s emergence from the floor of the Millennium Falcon. Han Solo and Indiana Jones also have more than a share of Sanjuro in them, in their willingness to shoot first, ask questions later, and claim neutrality when all is said and done.
Make no mistake, “Yojimbo” is a B movie, and it shows. It has the great fast and raw characterization of black-and-white drive-in thrillers. The clan bosses are utter toads. The guy with the gun (Tatsuya Nakadai) is a grinning sadist probably crippled by sexual inadequacies. His big brother (Daisuke Kato) is a chunky, buck-toothed mental patient. The coffin-maker (Atsushi Watanabe) is gleeful at the prospect of bodies everywhere and despondent at the thought of a truce. Sanjuro’s only companion is the innkeeper (Eijiro Tono), although I think he might just be called “Old Man” until near the end. Actor Takashi Shimura, who as a young man played the elderly hero of Kurosawa’s “Ikiru,” once again dons aging makeup to become the embodiment of a dirty old man enslaved by lust for his imprisoned concubine. Kurosawa is not interested in realism and heightens everything he can. Virtually every conversation begins with choked gutturals and ends with screams. The way he orchestrates the near-battle between the two clans is not at all what you would see in real life, but precisely how you might imagine it if you were reading it from a book of thousand-year-old folk tales.
From a technical perspective, “Yojimbo” may be a little rough around the edges for modern audiences. The toy gun might, somehow, work in the movie’s favor (“I can’t die if I’m not holding my gun. I feel sort of naked without it!”). The costumes are convincing—so many sandals and socks—but the movie’s sound is not great and we’ve become accustomed to seeing swords dig in farther. The stunts in the sword fights are flawless, even if the special effects are not, and even more convincing than modern movies is the way some of Mifune’s enemies actually run away from him. “Yojimbo’s” greatness is that it is so iconic. It single-mindedly develops its lead character, makes its point, and goes home. The way Sanjuro picks his direction by throwing a stick into the air is straight out of some fable or another. Kurosawa gives the movie the feel of a myth or a legend, and “Yojimbo” has become a legend in its own right.
Finished March 11, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
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