Yojimbo, Sanjuro

Two classics by acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa - YOJIMBO and SANJURO - have just been released together as a double feature both as standard Blu-ray and 4K UHD format. Great news not only for fans of Kurosawa’s work but also for fans of leading star Toshiro Mifune, who takes centre stage in both movies!

YOJIMBO literally means ‘Bodyguard’ and that’s precisely what ‘Kuwabatake Sanjuro’ (Toshiro Mifune) is in this tense Samurai film from 1961. This hugely successful b/w movie was Kurosawa’s homage to the Westerns of John Ford, while it served as an inspiration for Sergio Leone’s 1964 Spaghetti Western ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ - although Leone was later successfully sued by Japanese production company Toho for having unofficially remade Kurosawa’s original. The story is set in 1860 during the final years of Japan’s Edo period, when feudal rule slowly but surely came to an end. Mifune is simply magnificent (what else!) as a drifting ronin who wanders aimlessly through a rather barren looking countryside until the road forks. Throwing a stick in the air, it lands at the very path which our drifter, so far nameless, decides to take. Arriving in a small town after having overheard a conversation along the way, he (and us) get a taste of things to come when a dog walks along, with a human hand in its mouth… Entering a tavern, the owner, Gondi (Eijiro Tono) has some well-meant advice for the stranger, namely to turn around and leave town! He cites the ongoing, as it turns out, rather nasty, dispute between two rival gangs as the reason for his advice. On the one side, the gang lead by Ushitora (Kyo Sazanka) originally served as a lieutenant to Seibei (Seizoburo Kawazu) - the original head honcho of the town’s underworld who has his ‘headquarters’ in the local brothel, probably because his wife, Orin (Isuzu Yamada), is not only the brothel madam but the actual brains behind her husband’s actions.

To complicate things further, Seibei has appointed his son Yoichiro (Hiroshi Tachkawa) as the future successor of his parents’ business… Too bad that shy Yoichiro harbours next to no ambitions to follow in his dad’s footsteps. Since the actual mayor of the town, silk merchant Tazaemon (Kamatari Fujiwara), has long been controlled by Seibei (ultimately leading to the silk merchant going mad out of fear and paranoia), Ushitora, not wishing to be outdone, is now in cahoots with Tokuemon (Takashi Shimura), the local sake brewer. What’s more, Tokuemon claims to be the new mayor after Ushitora had apparently appointed him. Our drifter who, when asked about his name, replies it is Kuwabatake Sanjuro upon spotting a ‘thirty-years-old’ mulberry field at the very moment when the question is asked, wasn’t born yesterday and clocks that neither gang is really interested in ending the ongoing feud. However, both sides are keen on employing Sanjuro as a hired gun (or in his case, a hired sword) and as a yojimbo (bodyguard). Sanjuro also observes pretty quickly that Seibei is the weaker of the two gang leaders, which is why he sides with him. During the course of action, it turns out that Sanjuro has his own plan, namely playing Seibei and Ushitora’s gang against each other, all the while raking in payment (not to mention copious amounts of free food and sake wine) from both factions…
YOJIMBO is as brutal as it is atmospheric, set in a place where the wind never stops blowing and the dust never seems to settle. Regarding the actors who portray assorted gang members, at times it feels like a Japanese version of ‘Fellini’s faces’ with its display of oddballs and grotesques. It’s riveting from beginning to end and the final showdown truly is a sight to behold.

One year later, Toshiro Mifune returned as the scruffy and smart-as-a-whip ronin, this time calling himself Sanjuro Tsubaki. Although SANJURO is meant to be a sequel to its forerunner Yojimbo, the two films couldn’t be more different. For one, Sanjuro is considerably more wordy and nowhere near as brutal as Yojimbo, with the violence only arising occasionally… and in a duel scene which made film history… Initially meant to be an adaptation of writer Shugoro Yamamotos’ novel ‘Hibi Heian’, director Kurosawa (who co-wrote the script) decided to alter it, so the character of Sanjuro could be incorporated in this follow-up film, after Yojimbo turned out to be box-office gold. Although the set-up also concerns two factions, it’s decidedly more political and occasionally interspersed with black humour. The plot concerns nine rather naive (and also rather inexperienced) samurai who believe that Mutsuta (Yunosuke Ito), the Lord Chamberlain, is a corrupt man after he tore up the samurais’ petition against fraud at court. Superintendent Kikui (Masao Shimizu) has been made aware of this by one of the samurais and promised to intervene. As the nine samurai assemble in a shrine for a secret meeting to discuss the next steps, our fearless Sanjuro, who stumbles into the shrine seemingly out of nowhere after having overheard their conversation, urges the samurai not be so trustworthy when it comes to Kikui’s promises. Sure enough, a short while later the group are ambushed by Kikui’s men and once again, it’s Sanjuro who saves the day… and the nine samurai. Good deed done and thus, Sanjuro is about to carry on with his journey when it occurs to him that following the ambush, Lord Chamberlain Mutsuta and his family must be in a perilous situation and decides to stay on and help out (which is just as well, seeing how the nine samurai are pretty clueless).

Together, the group manage to rescue the Chamberlain’s wife (Takako Irie) and grown-up daughter Chidori (Reiko Dan) from the captivators’ clutches but have yet to find the place where the Chamberlain is held prisoner. This is only possible by sheer coincidence, namely when mother and daughter find a piece of torn paper floating in a stream where they happen to wash their feet (talk about timing) and as it turns out, the piece of paper is part of the petition which the chamberlain had torn up. Thanks to Sanjuro’s intelligence, the group are now able to piece together the Chamberlain’s whereabouts but in order to free Mutsuta, Sanjuro and the samurai first would need to get past Kikui and his men, in particular his nasty henchman Hanbei Muroto (Tatsuya Nakadai). To get past Hanbei and Mutsuta’s army requires a fool-proof plan and it goes without saying that Sanjuro is the man to ensure the success of the operation… Not wishing to give away this highlight, the duel between the ronin and Hanbei is a bloody sight to behold (no pun intended). The film ends as it does in ‘Yojimnbo’ - namely with our anti-hero drifting off into the horizon… but not before scolding the young samurai that they still have learned nothing from the entire experience.

Among the generous Bonus Material are audio commentaries, original trailers, image galleries, two documentaries (Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create - Yojimbo / It is Wonderful to Create - Sanjuro, analytical assessment by Kurosawa scholar Jasper Sharp, Alex Cox on Kurosawa, plus illustrated booklet (first pressing only).