“Yojimbo is intimate to the point of claustrophobia. Its wit is wry, its characters flawed and its world-view uncompromisingly cynical.”
A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, (Toshirô Mifune), enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. The ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon (Kamatari Fujiwara) and sake merchant Tokuemon (Takashi Shimura) to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men… Loosely based on Dashiel Hammett’s novel Red Harvest, Yojimbo went on to inspire another masterpiece, Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars. Kurosawa said of Mifune: “ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three feet.” Yojimbo shows us how.
Thanks to the overwhelming vote Yojimbo received and because Nigel loves the film so much we will also be showin its sequel, Sanjuro, on Tuesday 6 June.
