Yojimbo Review

Number 96 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1961 jidaigeki film Yojimbo.

The first Japanese film I've reviewed since The Seven Samurai and also the film that inspired Sergio Leone's Dollars' Trilogy including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Yojimbo focuses on Sanjuro Kuwabatake, a ronin.  When Sanjuro wanders into an impoverished country town, he finds himself caught up in a war between two different clans of bandits.  As much as he tries to stay neutral, he finds himself drawn into the conflict as both sides want him to act as their bodyguard or Yojimbo.

From an outsider's perspective, this was an interesting film to watch.  I don't know much about Japanese history, so it was definitely interesting learning about Japan's Edo period.  I especially liked watching how Yojimbo focused on the family.  The two warring factions are led by Ushitora and Sebei.  At one point friends, Ushitora rebels against Sebei when the latter hands over the reigns of the gang to his son, Yoichiro, who is not up to the task.  A second example of family comes right at the beginning of the film where Sanjuro witnesses a son arguing to his elderly parents that he wants to make something of his life by joining the bandits, rather than live the rest of his life as a boring, dull farmer.  At the end of the film, in the final confrontation, when Sanjuro is killing all of the bandits, he spares the son telling him to go home and enjoy a quiet life.  This was a nice touch and a good way to bring the film full circle.  Sometimes it is better to fade away eating gruel rather than dying young in a blaze of glory.

All of this notwithstanding, I can't say that I particularly enjoyed this film.  I found it tedious and difficult to follow at times.  I did get confused between the large cast of characters and especially about who was on whose side.  Every so often I had to pause the film and read the IMDB summary to catch up on everything that was happening. Plus the special effects and fight scenes were pretty poor as well.  I know that this was a black and white film in the 60's, but they were so obviously fake.

All in all this was a film that made very little impression on me.  I can't remember much of what I watched, but it'll be interesting to come back to this film, after I have watched the Spaghetti Western classic it inspired: A Fistful of Dollars.