Yojimbo : Yo, Jimbo! -- A amazing classic from Akira Kurasawa and Toshiro Mifune

A wonderful example of how a foreign director can take an American genre and make it better, Yojimbo is one of the best western movies ever made. Ok, its not really a western movie, or is it? Yojimbo is a black and white movie about a samurai who wonders into a town with a sheriff, inn, brothel, and 2 warring factions. Ok, so maybe it is a western, switch guns with swords and sheriff with its Japanese equivalent.

The cinematography in this film is incredible. Toughness, strength and loneliness of the samurai is apparent with each step he takes, and he spends most of the film walking. Long interludes are spent with Yojimbo simply walking in town, with some weird and rough score playing in the background. Battle scenes are short, and include no heroic events. Mostly a minute passes after Yojimbo unsheathes his sword, and his opponents are lying in pieces. None of those flying ninja tricks or long sword battles -- real life fencing matches take less than a split second. And so it is in this movie.

The story line is also very interesting, which is the reason why this movie is so successful. In the opening scene, a Ronin (masterless samurai) picks up a piece of stick and throws it up into the air. He than starts walking in the direction that the stick falls, and wanders into a town poor and hungry. He must make his money and survive by killing, which he also says in the movie. In this town are 2 warring factions. For some reason, these fighting people are called gamblers. Perhaps gambling in ancient Japan gave you a class of its own? The rest of the plot revolves around how Yojimbo gets these clans to kill each other in order to bring peace to the town.

The story becomes amazing when we get introduced to the true face of the Samurai. From the beginning up to that point, we see him as a lone, hungry wolf, willing to do whatever it takes to survive in a tough world. At this particular melting point, Yojimbo goes way out of his way to rescue a housewife who was sold into slavery, risking his neck and also sacrificing the only income he had been able to acquire so far.

In many ways, Yojimbo has been the starting point of many western movies. Clint Eastwood would never made it big with 'For a fistful of dollars' if not for the influence of the Samurai movie. Most recent American movie that was influenced by Yojimbo was a complete fiasco of a remake called 'Last Man Standing' with Bruce Willis. There was no last man standing...or sitting...watching. Everybody had left before the movie finished. If you have never seen Yojimbo, you should go out and rent it today.