Film Forum

Japan, 1961
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Starring Toshirō Mifune, Eijirō Tōno, Tatsuya Nakadai
Produced by Akira Kurosawa, Tomoyuki Tanaka, Ryūzō Kikushima
WINNER Venice Film Festival – Best Actor (Toshirō Mifune), 1961
Approx. 110 min. 4K DCP.

“You can’t get ahead in this world unless folks think you’re both a cheat and a killer.” Met in a seemingly deserted village by a stray mutt sauntering past with a severed hand in its jaws, unemployed Toshirō Mifune realizes a skilled yojimbo (bodyguard) could rake in the ryo in this town. And after checking out the saké merchant’s thugs squaring off against the silk merchant’s goon squad, twice as much, if he hires out to both sides — but he meets his match in Nakadai’s pistol-waving killer.

Reviews

“Their confrontations are like a face-off between John Wayne and Elvis Presley.”
– Stuart Gailbraith

“Kurosawa has made the first great shaggy-man movie. YOJIMBO is a glorious comedy-satire of force: the story of a bodyguard who kills the bodies he is hired to guard.”
– Pauline Kael

“Kurosawa knew and loved American westerns, but deploying their conventions in feudal Japan he utterly transformed them—to our utter fascination and delight.”
– Richard Schickel, TIME