Yojimbo


Yojimbo is a 1961 Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa, who also co-wrote the screenplay and was one of the producers. The film stars Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada, Daisuke Katō, Takashi Shimura, Kamatari Fujiwara, and Atsushi Watanabe. In the film, a rōnin arrives in a small town where competing crime lords fight for supremacy. The two bosses each try to hire the newcomer as a bodyguard.
Based on the success of Yojimbo, Kurosawa's next film, Sanjuro, was altered to incorporate the lead character of this film. In both films, the character wears a rather dilapidated dark kimono bearing the same family mon.
The film was released and produced by Toho on April 25, 1961. Yojimbo received highly positive reviews, and, over the years, became widely regarded as one of the best films by Kurosawa. The film grossed an estimated US$2.5 million worldwide with a budget of ¥90.87 million. Its story was plagiarized by Sergio Leone in his Spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars, leading to a lawsuit by Toho.

Plot

In 1860, during the final years of the Edo period, a rōnin wanders through a desolate countryside. Stopping at a farmhouse for water, he overhears an elderly couple lamenting that their only son has run off to join the "gamblers" in a nearby town, which is overrun with criminals and contested by two rival yakuza gangs.
In the town, the rōnin stops at a small izakaya. The owner Gonji advises the rōnin to leave, and tells him that the two warring bosses, Ushitora and Seibei, are fighting over the lucrative gambling trade run by Seibei. Ushitora had been Seibei's right-hand man until Seibei decided that his successor would be his son Yoichiro, a useless youth. The town's mayor, a silk merchant named Tazaemon, had long been in Seibei's pocket, so Ushitora aligned himself with the local sake brewer, Tokuemon, proclaiming him the new mayor.
After sizing up the situation and recognizing that no one in town cares about ending the violence, the rōnin says he intends to stay, as the town would be better off with both sides dead. He convinces the weaker Seibei to hire his services by effortlessly killing three of Ushitora's men. When asked his name, he sees a mulberry field and states his name is Kuwabatake Sanjuro .
Seibei decides that with the rōnin's help, it is time to deal with Ushitora. Sanjuro eavesdrops on Seibei's wife, who orders Yoichiro to prove himself by killing the rōnin after the upcoming raid, saving them from having to pay him. Sanjuro leads the attack on Ushitora's faction, but then "resigns" over Seibei's treachery, expecting both sides to massacre each other. His plan is foiled due to the unexpected arrival of a bugyō, which prompts both Seibei and Ushitora to make a bloodless retreat.
The bugyō leaves soon after to investigate the assassination of a fellow official in another town. Overhearing the assassins discussing the hit in Gonji's tavern, Sanjuro later captures them and sells them to Seibei. Then he comes to Ushitora and tells him Seibei's men caught the assassins. Alarmed, Ushitora generously rewards Sanjuro for his "help" and kidnaps Yoichiro to exchange for the two assassins. At the swap, Ushitora's brother Unosuke kills the assassins with a pistol.
Anticipating this, Seibei reveals he had ordered the kidnapping of Tokuemon's mistress. The next morning, she is exchanged for Yoichiro. Sanjuro learns that the mistress, Nui, is a local farmer's wife. After he sold her to Ushitora to settle a gambling debt, Ushitora gave her to Tokuemon as chattel to gain his support. After tricking Ushitora into revealing where Nui is held, Sanjuro kills the guards and reunites the woman with her husband and son, ordering them to leave town immediately. He comes to Ushitora and informs him that Seibei is responsible for killing his men.
The gang war escalates, with Ushitora burning down Tazaemon's silk warehouse and Seibei retaliating by trashing Tokuemon's brewery. After some time, Unosuke becomes suspicious of Sanjuro and the circumstances surrounding Nui's escape, eventually uncovering evidence of the rōnin's betrayal. Sanjuro is severely beaten and imprisoned by Ushitora's thugs, who torture him to find out Nui's whereabouts. When Ushitora decides to eliminate Seibei once and for all, Sanjuro escapes. Smuggled out of town in a coffin by Gonji, Sanjuro witnesses the brutal end of Seibei and his family. He then recuperates in a small temple near a cemetery.
Upon learning that Gonji has been captured by Ushitora, Sanjuro returns to town and dispatches Ushitora, Unosuke, and their gang in a final confrontation. He spares a terrified young man, the son of the elderly couple from the opening, and sends him back to his parents. As Sanjuro surveys the damage, a now deranged Tazaemon comes out of his home in a samurai outfit and stabs Tokuemon to death. Sanjuro frees Gonji, proclaims that the town will be quiet from then on, and departs.

Cast

  • Toshiro Mifune as "Kuwabatake Sanjuro", a wandering rōnin and master swordsman who provokes two gangs into open war.
  • Eijirō Tōno as Gonji, the izakaya owner and the rōnin's ally and confidant.
  • Tatsuya Nakadai as Unosuke, a gun-toting gangster and younger brother to both Ushitora and Inokichi.
  • Seizaburo Kawazu as Seibei, the original boss of the town's underworld. He operates out of a brothel.
  • Kyū Sazanka as Ushitora, the other gang leader in town. He was originally Seibei's lieutenant but broke ranks to start his own syndicate in a succession dispute.
  • Isuzu Yamada as Orin, the wife of Seibei and the brains behind her husband's criminal operations.
  • Daisuke Katō as Inokichi, younger brother of Ushitora and older brother to Unosuke. He is a strong fighter but is very dim-witted and easily fooled.
  • Takashi Shimura as Tokuemon, a sake brewer who claims to be the new mayor.
  • Hiroshi Tachikawa as Yoichiro, the timid son of Seibei and Orin who shows little inclination to take over his father's gang.
  • Yosuke Natsuki as the farmer's son, a young man seen running away from home at the beginning of the film who joins Ushitora's gang.
  • Kamatari Fujiwara as Tazaemon, the town mayor and silk merchant who is going insane from fear.
  • Ikio Sawamura as Hansuke, the town constable who is completely corrupt and concerned only with keeping himself alive.
  • Atsushi Watanabe as the town's coffin maker, who is profiting heavily from the gang war but ultimately chooses to help Sanjuro and Gonji put an end to it.
  • Susumu Fujita as Honma, Seibei's "master swordsman" who deserts his employer before a battle with Ushitora's men, allowing Sanjuro to take his place.
  • Sachio Sakai as Ashigaru
  • Yoko Tsukasa as Nui, the wife of Kohei. She was taken prisoner by Tokuemon because of her beauty after her husband could not pay back his gambling debts.
  • Yoshio Tsuchiya as Kohei, the husband of Nui who lost all of his money gambling and frequently gets beaten for trying to visit his wife.
  • as Kannuki, Ushitora's acromegalic enforcer.

    Production

Writing

Kurosawa stated that a major source for the plot was the 1942 film noir classic The Glass Key, an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 1931 novel of the same name. It has been noted that the overall plot of Yojimbo is closer to that of another Hammett novel, Red Harvest. Kurosawa scholar David Desser, and film critic Manny Farber claim that Red Harvest was the inspiration for the film; however, Donald Richie and other scholars believe the similarities are coincidental.
When asked his name, the samurai calls himself "Kuwabatake Sanjuro", which he seems to make up while looking at a mulberry field by the town. Thus, the character can be viewed as an early example of the "Man with No Name".

Casting

Many of the actors in Yojimbo worked with Kurosawa before and after, especially Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura and Tatsuya Nakadai.

Filming

After Kurosawa scolded Mifune for arriving late to the set one morning, Mifune made it a point to be ready on set at 6:00a.m. every day in full makeup and costume for the rest of the film's shooting schedule.
This was the second film where director Akira Kurosawa worked with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa.
The sword instruction and choreography for the film were done by Yoshio Sugino of the Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū and Ryū Kuze.

Music

The soundtrack for the film has received positive reviews. Michael Wood writing retrospectively for the London Review of Books found the film's soundtrack by Masaru Sato as effective in its 'jaunty and jangling' approach stating:
The film is full of music, for instance, a loud, witty soundtrack by Masaru Sato, who said his main influence was Henry Mancini. It doesn’t sound like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, though, or Days of Wine and Roses. The blaring Latin sound of Touch of Evil comes closer, but actually you wouldn’t think of Mancini if you hadn’t been told. Sato’s effect has lots of drums, mixes traditional Japanese flutes and other instruments with American big band noises, and feels jaunty and jangling throughout, discreetly off, as if half the band was playing in the wrong key. It’s distracting at first, then you realise it’s not decoration, it’s commentary. It’s a companion to Sanjuro, the sound of his mind, discordant and undefeated and unserious, even when he’s grubby and silent and apparently solemn.

Release

Yojimbo was released in Japan on 25 April 1961. The film was released by Seneca International in both a subtitled and dubbed format in the United States in September 1961.

Box office

Yojimbo was Japan's fourth highest-grossing film of 1961, earning a distribution rental income of. This was equivalent to estimated box office gross receipts of approximately .
Overseas, the film had a September 1961 release in North America, but the box office income of this release is currently unknown. At the 2002 Kurosawa & Mifune Festival in the United States, the film grossed $561,692. In South Korea, a 2012 re-release grossed .
In Europe, a January 1991 limited French re-release sold 14,178 tickets, equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately . Other limited European re-releases sold 3,392 tickets between 2000 and 2018, equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of at least . This adds up to an estimated grossed overseas, and an estimated grossed worldwide.
Adjusted for ticket price inflation, at 2012 Japanese ticket prices, its Japanese gross receipts are equivalent to an estimated , or adjusted for inflation in. The overseas gross revenue of North American and European re-releases since 1991 are equivalent to approximately adjusted for inflation, adding up to an estimated inflation-adjusted total gross of over worldwide.