To me, this movie is perfection.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

First of the Yojimbo/Sanjuro set, Many of the shots which would be used in a Fistful of Dollars the start of Dollars trilogy. The Samurai walking in the town with the dog with severed hand in his mouth puts tone of the whole film in that one scene. This film has many more and overall you should this influential action masterpiece.

Yojimbo is one of those weird films you don't know what genre you should put them in. It's a drama, I suppose, but I feel tempted to define it as as dark comedy crammed with dark humour. I know it might be a bit out of the ordinary to open a review by expressing one's doubts but after watching the film, and even as I was watching it, I struggled to identify the genre the movie belonged to.That, as important as it may seem to me, it's not and obstacle to keep me from enjoying the film. It tells the simple story of a ronin, a kind of drifting samurai that wanders from town to town in medieval Japan, often selling his sword to the highest bid. To start off, the fact that the action revolves around such popular a character in Japanise culture is both risky and appealing. The former because it implies the films will have to deal with a warrior whose portrait is so embedded in Jajapanese culture that even the the slightest attempt to derail that image that cultures project onto society, one that unconsciously we individually tempt to assume. The latter, because by making a film that shatters the samurai's path to wisdom, by the time you have watched it you'll have learnt one thing or two non only about warriors but about human condition.And the film works very well as a research project on the human condition. Violence, terror, loneliness are sharp and precisely dealt with in this Kurosawa's film. Not only that, Yojimbo juggles all these ingredients masterfully and quite often you fin yourself not knowing if you should laugh, cry or both at the same time. What the story is about isn't quite important, really. Let's just say that this cunning samurai tricks two rival gangs into fighting each other. In short, a must have for every cinema fan out there.

In 1860, during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate,a rōnin (masterless samurai) wanders through a desolate Japanese countryside. While stopping at a farmhouse, he overhears an elderly couple lamenting that their only son has given up farm labouring in order to run off and join the rogues who have descended on a nearby town that has become divided by a gang war. The stranger heads to the town where he meets the owner of a small Izakaya who advises him to leave. He tells the rōnin that the two warring clans are led by Ushitora and Seibei. The silk merchant and mayor back Seibei while the sake brewer is allied with Ushitora. But after sizing up the situation, the stranger says he intends to stay as the town would be better off with both sides dead.

I had sen this Japanese film listed in the television schedules a number of times, always on the same channel, Film4, it is rated five out of five stars by critics, so I decided it was definitely worth a watch, directed by Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai). Basically samurai Sanjuro Kuwabatake (Toshirô Mifune) finds himself in the middle of a Japanese village with feuding, neither side is particularly honorable, but Sanjuro is hungry and impoverished, so he finds work as a bodyguard (or Yojimbo) for a silk merchant Tazaemon (Kamatari Fujiwara). Sanjuro chooses over a job working for sake brewer Tokuemon (Takashi Shimura), but he pretends to work for him, as part of a plan for them to tear each other apart, but he is eventually arrested for treachery. Sanjuro escapes in time to see the two warring sides fight to the finish, the plan all along was to create and restore peace, Sanjuro leaves the village for further exploits, the character returned in the sequel titled Sanjuro a year later. Also starring Eijirô Tôno as Gonji the Tavern Keeper, Seizaburô Kawazu as Seibê the Brothel Operator, Isuzu Yamada as Orin, Hiroshi Tachikawa as Yoichiro and Susumu Fujita as Homma the Instructor Who Skips Town. The performances are fine, and the direction as always is great from Kurosawa, I will admit I did not pay the fullest attention to everything going on, and it did get confusing at times, but the 19th century feel is authentic, and the sword skill and fight scenes catch your eye, I can see some reasons why it would get full marks from critics, it did influence A Fistful of Dollars and the "spaghetti western" genre, a worthwhile adventure. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Costume Design. Very good!