2010 - January 9: Yojimbo

Yojimbo 1961
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

"A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town." from IMDB

This is a Kurosawa film that I haven't seen, but have been looking forward to it ever since it got suggested. I'll see if I can come up with some discussion points to give us something to look for.

I love this film. Still remember the first time I saw it. Been to a mate's house where a load of us got very drunk. Ended up with me and Street Pete watching Yojimbo while sipping beer with whiskey chasers.

Fantastic film

watched it last night for the first time. And im impressed, its not as theatrical as i imagined it would be,
tho there are ofcourse the overacted characters that seems taken straight out of a manga hehe. But mostly
they characters are really whell done, acted and generally portrayed. The funnies being the sheriff that squeeks
like a mouse. the Bodyguard.. is a real mean mofo hehe, very kickass, and i can see clearly alot of westerns and
even 80s 90s movies that this character influenced alot.

Saw right away that Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis was a remake of Yojimbo, very much alike, even seemed
some shots where deliberatly filmed the same way too, tho its been along time since i saw LMS. What i didn't know is
that Yojimbo has 12 direct or indirect sequels according to IMDB, including the Zatoichi sieries. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055630/movieconnections

May have to go through that list some time in the future.

I watched it last night and liked it a lot. I think it's one of Kurosawa's lightest movies, without a lot of the dark overtones of DRUNKEN ANGEL or SEVEN SAMURAI. Sometimes a shot in his films will look "staged", or set up just for a nice camera shot. I saw none of that in YOJIMBO and think it may be his most accessible movie, one that everyone can enjoy.

What impressed me the most, though, were the music score and the acting job by Toshiro Mifune. The music has almost a comic atmosphere about it. And although I wouldn't call this a comedy, it's by no means as "heavy" as Kurosawa's other films, and the music fits everything so well...almost a comic western flavor.

But, to me, the whole movie really belongs to Toshiro Mifune as Sanjuro. It's really fun to see how far he's come as an actor from DRUNKEN ANGEL, where everything was overplayed and way "over the top". This one is almost the opposite of that; his low-key observations seem almost underplayed. And in his eyes you can see the humor with which he watches the battles going on around him...like he knows something that no ones else does, and he's not letting on. Kurosawa saw the acting potential in him from the first time he saw him..it's taken me a little longer, but now it's easy to see why they did so many movies together. Great director plus great actor.

Makes me want to watch SANJURO, the direct sequel.

agree with the music, its very light and comical at times, and very full blown too, maybe a bit to much at times, but very tone setting.
They did seem to play a bit on the comedy card, but that is somewhat usual i think, to have comical/moronic characters to emphasise
the strong or evil opposites in the movies. Thats why (in my oppinion) the joker works so good as a villain against batman hehe.
And they do it so well too in this one, keeps everything entertaining, and everyone interested in the movie.