a bona-fide crowd pleaser and the closest thing he has to a comedy, kurosawa employs his usual visual nitpickery to instead create a glorious cartoon. if you've never seen a black-and-white film before, this is the one. kurosawa's 1960s are so gorgeous that they make color film seem like a gimmick.
there's a nihilism in yojimbo that pervades quite a lot of kurosawa's work. so it's easy to assume this is another bout of pessimism, only this time punctuated with a sneer. then, unexpectedly, the opportunity to do good presents itself in a world that seemed to have none left. and while doing the right thing may not be the most rational thing, it is, nevertheless, right.
TOSHIRO MIFUNE may very well be the most iconic actor in japanese cinematic history. with over 150 films to his name, he's best known for his frequent collaborations with kurosawa. to quote kurosawa himself; "the ordinary japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; mifune needed only three feet." mifune was, in fact, never trained as an actor! the story goes he intended to find work as a photographer for film, but was unwillingly drawn into the studio's talent search, where his stormy performance caught kurosawa's eye.
i find his acting kind of OTT every once in a while, but that just makes him the perfect other half to kurosawa's melodramatic sensibilites. and he's absolutely perfect as the so-called sanjuro kuwabatake. likable from the very first frame, he's as coolly charismatic as he is utterly badass. but, as with the movie, he's got his unexpected soft spots. (you can keep your goddamn eastwoods!)
TATSUYA NAKADAI-- my favorite actor of all time, by the way-- co-stars as the villainous unosuke. though 10 years mifune's junior, nakadai's star was shining just as brightly in 1961, and yojimbo was their first film together. well, their first proper film together; nakadai's screen debut was as an extra on seven samurai, another kurosawa film where mifune starred. his experience was so humilating that nakadai swore off any future collaborations with kurosawa. as it turned out, nakadai took over mifune's place as leading man during the late phase of kurosawa's career.
nakadai's playing one of my favorite archetypes of his, i.e. evil crazy guy. unosuke's eponymous bunny-rabbit face is marred by a nefarious grin, and his big ol' eyes glitter with madness. despite their constrasting personalities, he's a villain that mirrors the hero: tucking his arms in his kimono, he's the only other player with the wits to match sanjuro's. and, of course, there's the central conflict of sanjuro's sword versus unosuke's shiny new pistol...
SANJURO returned in 1962 as a titular hero in the only sequel kurosawa ever directed. (nakadai is also back as an entirely unrelated antagonist, LOL.) the film was originally concieved as an adaptation of the short story peaceful days, but was reworked into its own story. (the story was properly adapted* in 1968 as kill!, with the protagonist played by... wait for it... tatsuya nakadai!!)
it's certainly not as electric as its predecessor, but for the most part, this is a pleasant way to revisit a favorite character. sanjuro's lecturing of his nine newfound understudies is pretty cute, and he even learns a lesson of his own. oh, and fans of the "high-pressure anime blood" trope have to at least pay their respects to the final duel of this film. (done on the first take!)
*fact-checkers may notice that the credits of kill! cite different source material by the same author. as did i... i emailed mulvaney of the criterion collection, who said multiple sources with criterion corroborated this, though he did not provide them. this is good enough for an asterisked sentence for me.
