Yojimbo

Today is the 4th day of the Kurosawa Blogathon at filmsquish. This is our 5th film.

Yojimbo is one we discovered long after we found out the The Magnificent Seven had been inspired by a Kurosawa movie. We only recently found out the The Man With No Name was inspired by another Kurosawa movie. The Younger Son was interested in seeing another Clint Eastwood film and the blogathon tie-in proved irresistible, so we chose Yojimbo on one of our buying trips. We're glad we did. This movie was so funny! We didn't expect it to be funny, but there you go. We bought the Criterion edition, again for the reason that a cheaper more low-frills version was unavailable. (sigh) This was letter-boxed with the subtitles conveniently placed in the black strip at the bottom.

This movie stars Toshiro Mifune, who is also in Rashomon and Seven Samurai. It does not include our friend Takashi Shimura, who has been in all the other Kurosawa movies we've seen. I missed him.

part 1:

part 2:

Roger Ebert's review is here. The essay included in the Criterion release is here. The Criterion Contraption has a review. Yojimbo is on Time's list of 100 best films. It's listed as an "essential film" on the PBS Great Performances site. Critic After Dark reviews Yojimbo as part of the blogathon.