J-Film Blog

Ah, the Samurai, the cowboys of ancient Japan.  Well, maybe not quite so ancient in this film, Yojinbo, aka “The Bodyguard.”  I’m not sure that “bodyguard” is an apt translation, but its all I can find!

This is it, the classic Akira Kurosawa film which as you might know, inspired the Clint Eastwood film “A Fistful of Dollars” and the later Bruce Willis movie “Last Man Standing.”

The nameless ronin samurai (the eternal Toshiro Mifune), who takes the name “Kuwabatake” after the mulberry field outside the village, moves into town, right in the middle of a feud between two rival “businessmen.”  On the one side is Seibei and his wife, the operators of a brothel.  On the other is Ushitora.

Basically Kuwabatake manages to play the greed and treachery of each side against the other, until neither side remains.

What’s great about Yojimbo is that its a sort of meeting between the classic Samurai stories, and the (then contemporary) spaghetti western.  The dusty “ghost town” streets, the showdowns, the posturing, and yes, even the incredibly cornball soundtrack….  If it doesn’t remind you of a good old fashioned Hollywood western then you just haven’t seen any.

There are other devils at work though.  The Ronin’s desire to clean up the town appears to actually have some genuine roots, as he allows the Kendo teacher to flee the fight with a grin on his face, or manages to free a family from being trapped in the feuding.  Yet he never really loses that “I’m in it for me” character, as he’s always trying to get a few more “ryo” from each side.

Then there’s Unosuke, the returned son who’s brought a “new” six-shooter back with him.  Despite his new technological terror, he still can’t defeat the Ronin…

I have to admit, as a package deal, I remembered Yojimbo being a little better, and a lot less corny.  I think 90% of that has to do with the soundtrack.  I just don’t like it.  If they’d stuck to a “theme” instead of trying to blend the western and traditional japanese it might have worked better.

But it still rocks.  The scene with the dog non-chalantly carrying a  hand down the street as the Ronin enters town is still one of my favorite movie snippets ever.

The DVD I rented from Netflix appeared to be the now-discontinued 1999 release, and not the 2007 remastered edition.  Foo!  I thought it odd that the picture was letterboxed 16:9 to fit a 4:3 screen with the subs below!  C’mon Netflix, retire that disc!

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055630/
Amazon: Yojimbo – Remastered Edition (Criterion Collection Spine #52)