Yojimbo (1961)
1961 · Feature film · 110 min · dir. Akira Kurosawa
Kill one or a hundred... you only hang once
- Drama
Synopsis
A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.
Synopsis from TMDb
Details
- Director
- Akira Kurosawa
- Writer
- Ryuzo Kikushima
- Composer
- Masaru Satō
- Cinematography
- Kazuo Miyagawa
- Studio
- TOHO
- Released
- 1961-04-25
- Original title
- 用心棒
- Series
- Sanjuro Collection
- Running time
- 110 minutes
Cast & crew
Akira Kurosawa Director
Yōko Tsukasa
Hiroshi Tachikawa
Kyū Sazanka
Susumu Fujita
Eijirō Tōno
Kamatari Fujiwara
Yoshio Tsuchiya
Daisuke Katō
Reviews on the Internet Archive
★★★★★ · A classic!! · aravindhansundar · 2024-08-13
The movie offers great entertainment with a fast paced & gripping storyline. Japanese architecture & dressing was a treat to watch. The hero's valour, style & charisma is the centre-stage of the movie.
★★★★★ · Kurosawa is always a treat! · Murdoch Jeffries · 2022-02-18
Such a good movie. Everything about this movie is entertaining to me and it just oozes style. Fun fact: yojimbo, translated literally, means "to be on one's guard with a stick". It later came to mean "bodyguard". Yeah, watch this. Toshiro Mifune is amazing.
★★★★★ · What a blast. · beachdays · 2024-07-05
What a fantastic film this is, everything is so well made, so stylish and oozes class. Amusing from start to finish, filled with humanity, beautiful comedy moments and action, mr. Mifune is a sight to see as the ronin samurai that chooses his path throwing a stick to the air. A must see 4 everyone. Oldman........ see you around.
★★★★★ · Way better than the remakes · SenseiErnMiller · 2024-08-31
I love both Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis, and their star power carries the remakes to great heights, but the original is far above those.
★★★★★ · Yojimbo · Colm Duggan · 2026-03-11
A great gritty movie that was the basis for the 1996 film Last Man Standing starring Bruce Willis. I recall watching Last Man Standing and when he tosses the bottle in the air at the junction to determine where to go next, that's when it hit me where it came from. A good movie but Yojimbo is so much more.
★★★★ · Inspired by Dashiell Hammett? · bshell99 · 2024-01-12
On Wikipedia's entry for Dashiell Hammett some reviewers speculate that this film was inspired by Hammett's first novel Red Harvest, 1929.
