Yojimbo

[Kurosawa] was deliberately combining the samurai story with the Western, so that the wind-swept main street could be in any frontier town, the samurai (Toshiro Mifune) could be a gunslinger, and the local characters could have been lifted from John Ford's gallery of supporting actors. Read full review

Less visceral than the battle scene in Seven Samurai, this is more of a free-for-all, with brute force leaving no room for skill. Read full review

Yojimbo does not cause viewers to ponder deep issues in the way Rashomon does, nor does it possess the epic grandness of The Seven Samurai, yet it must still be considered in the top tier of Kurosawa's films. Stylish, compelling, and involving, it became as much a blueprint for future productions as it is an homage to past ones. Read full review

Something of a textbook example of the perfect crowd-pleaser, Kurosawa’s tale is sociopolitical wish fulfillment via archetypal samurai drama, albeit with a twist or three. Read full review

One of the great samurai pictures, its darkly brilliant premise--the cynical mercenary/master swordsman or yojimbo (bodyguard) who walks into a town feud and plays both evil sides against each other--has been copied frequently, most notably in the Sergio Leone-Clint Eastwood A Fistful of Dollars. But Kurosawa's treatment remains the most savage, thrilling, smart and hideously funny. [26 Jan 2007, p.C2]

There is so much displacement of the usual movie conventions that we don't have the time or inclination to ask why we are enjoying the action; we respond kinesthetically. One of the rare Japanese films that is both great and funny to American audiences.

This is still the one to see ...for Mifune's inimitable performance and Kurosawa's gorgeous black-and-white photography. [05 Jan 2001]

The filmmaking is marvelously austere, yet in its sudden bursts of action electrifying, in its stern morality sobering, in the blackness of its comedy often quite delicious. Read full review

Though this lacks the epic stature of Seven Samurai, Kurosawa here again shows his mastery of the medium. Read full review

You won't find a more bone-jarring set of fight scenes than the ones on display here, while Mifune's blood-letting drifter offers a masterclass in justice-dispensing cool. Read full review

Toshiro Mifune is electrifying as an unemployed samurai exploiting two embattled factions in an early nineteenth-century Japanese country town. [05 Nov 2000, p.11]

With Mifune's tongue-in-cheek performance and the wildly stylized battle scenes featuring mallet and pistol-wielding samurai, YOJIMBO may just be the first post-modern samurai film. Read full review

The widescreen Tohoscope compositions offer ample opportunities for dramatically staged standoffs, yet Kurosawa also employs them for laughs. Read full review

Far from being just another vehicle for Mifune, this belongs in that select group of films noirs which are also comedies. Read full review

Its reflection of the Westerns makes it more accessible to an American audience than some of his other movies and, although his characters have complicated moral shadings typical of Kurosawa films, Yojimbo can be enjoyed on a surface level. The simple plot moves and carries you along. [11 Apr 1991, p.13]

Kurosawa's imagery is alway exciting. [25 Oct 1962, p.16]

As in most Westerns, the dramatic penetration is not deep, and the plot complications are many and hard to follow in Japanese. Kurosawa is here showing more virtuosity than strength. Yojimbo is a long way (in the wrong direction) from his brilliant Rashomon. Read full review