Yojimbo

Yojimbo (用心棒, 1961) is an Akira Kurosawa classic starring Toshiro Mifune as a rōnin who wanders into a desolate backwater village in the turbulent years leading up to the end of the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1860s. The film opens with the hero drifting along dusty country roads and, in a gesture left to chance, tossing a stick into the air to decide which direction to take when it lands.

Two rival gangs are fighting for control of the village when the rōnin arrives. He befriends a saké brewer who runs a small tavern beside the coffin maker. The coffin maker has been doing brisk business due to the gang violence, though he later notes that while truces are bad for business, so is outright chaos, since no one bothers to pay for coffins when things truly fall apart.

The rōnin decides to exploit the conflict, at first seemingly for money, but later out of a sense of honor, or at least a desire to restore some peace and quiet. He calls himself Kuwabatake Sanjuro (meaning “thirty-year-old mulberry field”) after glancing at the field behind the house. He joins one gang, then switches sides as part of a scheme to have them destroy each other. After all, he cannot take them all on alone. He plays a dangerous game, though it’s never entirely clear how much control he has over it. Is he a master manipulator, or just a reckless drifter whose wits are as aimless as his wandering?

Kurosawa assembled a strong cast. When the gangs face off in the town center, each thug has a distinct presence and weapon, including a massive wooden mallet carried by the wrestler Namigoro Rashomon. It’s easy to imagine Martin Scorsese drawing inspiration from these scenes for the opening battle in Gangs of New York. (Yojimbo was also remade as A Fistful of Dollars starring Clint Eastwood, and later as Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis.) Even the geisha have their own unsettling presence. Tatsuya Nakadai plays a cold, gun-toting villain, and Isuzu Yamada appears memorably as well, known for roles such as Ayako Murai in Osaka Elegy by Kenji Mizoguchi.

The atmosphere of Yojimbo feels like a force in its own right, shaped by Kurosawa’s imagination and attention to detail. Dust is whipped up by the wind and stings the eyes. Smoke seeps through cracks in the wood. Light is dimmed by layers of grey. The village is isolated and strangely enclosed, as if the outside world could never reach it through the weeds and trees hemming it in. And there is a constant sense of desperation. When someone mentions silk merchants, it feels almost absurd. Silk seems out of place here. Only violence, greed, and grit belong. Yet the rōnin ultimately hopes to leave behind something quieter and more humane.

I very much enjoyed Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo is excellent as well. It may have fewer standout set pieces, but it remains a solid, memorable action film and a cleverly told, often amusing story, marked by Kurosawa’s distinctive cinematic touch. Definitely one to revisit.