J
apanese director Akira Kurosawa's classic black-and-white action movie Yojimbo kicked ass in 1961, and it's still kicking ass today.
He's a legend for a reason: his flicks are melancholy and graceful and feature actors of uncommon vulnerability. He also knows that violence is swift and brutal, and he was a master of capturing those qualities on film.
In Yojimbo, a masterless samurai wanders into a town in feudal Japan torn apart by warring crime families fighting over the gambling trade and then decides to pit them against each other to free the locals from their rule. It’s riveting from start to finish. As the sword-for-hire, Toshirô Mifune is charming as a rogue with a heart of gold. He's a moody hero who inhabits a broken world of selfish men willing to do bad things to people for a few coins. There isn’t a wasted shot in the entire 110-minute runtime.
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ALLEGEDLY FUN FACT: Yojimbo, a movie adapted multiple times, is itself an adaptation of the Dashiell Hammet novel “Red Harvest,” about a private eye who pits two gangs against one another in a small town.