Yojimbo (1961)

Samurai films like these were actually a big influence on George Lucas. I have to admit that samurai movies were never my thing. They were also a big inspiration on Westerns, which I also wasn't a big fan of. It can be hard to follow a movie with just subtitles, especially one whose plot I don't know getting into. I'd probably still say "Rashomon" is my favorite Akira Kurosawa movie. This is still a great movie in itself.Actually, I think I was actually introduced to the plot of this movie by an episode of "Pokémon"! It was "Showdown At Dark City" which featured these two gangs in a city trying to get help from Ash. You have to give the anime credit for referencing something so highbrow. Anyway, the basic plot is that this guy named Sanjuro (not Yojimbo) goes to this corrupt village where two rival gangs both want him to work for him. As you might have guessed, he ends up playing both of them. There are few sympathetic characters at first.We do see some nice villagers who just want everybody to stop fighting. Sanjuro is shown to have no allies in this film prior to the story. It's a great way of seeing how a single character can play off of everyone else. There's even some really nice social and technological commentary. One guy has a gun which is an odd place for a samurai film. I also felt that the length of this film was just perfect. ****

Way back towards the end of the '90s, I saw this film on IFC and it was my very first Kurosawa film. It came on at about 10 in the morning on a Saturday, and I stopped because the film looked so distinctive. The widescreen, the black and white, and Toshiro Mifune just looked so cool standing there. It wasn't far into the movie, but after being mesmerized by what I had seen I immediately looked online to where I could buy it (in widescreen, of course, which was not a given back then) and watched it about ten times within a week. Not long after I discovered Sanjuro and all of the rest of the Kurosawa/Mifune masterpieces. It's truly amazing to watch this and notice how current it feels, how the pacing is perfect, how funny it is, how sudden the violence takes place, and the overwhelming sense of danger that constantly envelops the entire film.It's brilliant, it's fun, and it's always entertaining, it's simply a masterpiece of filmmaking.

The movie is indeed a gem as it has great strengths. The story is so strong that it develops nicely over the fast paced flow. I really enjoy how the story develops and unravels with its twists and turns. The characters are also well developed as they unravel in time, revealing multiple layers of themselves and possibly changing audiences' view toward them. The directing is a great job since the movie successfully maximizes utilization on just a few sets to tell a great story like this. The bits of action sequences are also well directed, despite the lack of technology for that time. The acting is also quite nice, particularly Toshiro Mifune. His character is nicely portrayed that the layers of the character's true intention gets peeled well.

(73%) Watching this it's pretty clear to anyone that A fist full of dollars owes almost its entire existence to this Japanese classic. Almost from the very beginning, right down to the performances, direction, and script, this has the feel of a classic Leone western as the guy clearly helped himself to bits and pieces. And he must have figured that he'd largely get away with it because so few western people at the time would have ever actually had the chance to even know about this far-east hit. For anyone interested in classic Asian films, or just classic films in general, this is a must- watch that's well worth tracking down. There's a fair share of action, fun, and sheer entertainment value to be had from this quality, and still watchable first rate winner.