Review: Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" is a classic, and "Sanjuro" is even better

Movie of the Week #24 is an iconic jidaigeki double bill

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Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo is perhaps the greatest and most classic example of a film with such a terrific central character that all the propulsive weight of the story is centered in our transfixed gaze upon the protagonist.

Yojimbo is a cut above for many reasons, of course – for its terrific widescreen cinematography and lived-in mise-en-scene, its tight, deadly effective pacing, Kurosawa’s brilliant sense of character and narrative detail, etc. – but no one would deny that the film’s central enticement is Toshiro Mifune, at the height of his legendary movie star prowess, and his brilliant evocation of the masterless samurai Sanjuro. The propulsion of the film isn’t so much “what will happen next?” or “where shall the story go from here?” but “what will Sanjuro do next?” and “what trick does he have up his sleeve this time?” It is a small but crucial difference, in that the story itself and all the details therein are really just foundations laid to give Sanjuro room to play. The audience is carried along, episode to episode, not so much for their investment in the story – though it is an excellent yarn, one that has been borrowed many times all around the world – but because they are fascinated by Sanjuro, and by Mifune, and want to see what he will do next.