Show notes
Released in 1961, Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo was an international sensation and put jettisoned star Toshiro Mifune into the pantheon of cinematic badasses. It’s the story of merchants who manipulate two factions of gangsters in a small town. Our main character -- a man with no name -- comes to the town and after sizing things up decides that he’ll make a bit of money playing both sides against one another. Along the way we discover that perhaps he’s not the unscrupulous amoral bastard he pretends to be.
Eric Cohen (opens in a new tab) and Jordan Blossey (opens in a new tab) join Mike to discuss Yojimbo, it's sequel Sanjuro and a few other "Yojimbo movies" as well as Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, Walter Hill's Last Man Standing and a raft of other similar films.
Eric Cohen (opens in a new tab) and Jordan Blossey (opens in a new tab) join Mike to discuss Yojimbo, it's sequel Sanjuro and a few other "Yojimbo movies" as well as Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, Walter Hill's Last Man Standing and a raft of other similar films.
Labels: Akira Kurosawa Dashiell Hammett Ennio Morricone Eric Cohen John Ford Jordan Blossey Sergio Leone Toshiro Mifune Walter Hill
Watch
Music credits
- Yojimbo Score - Masaru Satoh
- A Fistful of Dollars Score - Ennio Morricone
Links & resources
- Buy Yojimbo & Sanjuro on Blu-ray (opens in a new tab)
- Buy the Man with No Name trilogy on Blu-ray (opens in a new tab)
- Buy Red Harvet by Dashiell Hammett (opens in a new tab)
- Read more about Hammett's Corkscrew (opens in a new tab)
- Buy Hammett: A Life on the Edge by William F. Nolan (opens in a new tab)
- Read about Machibuse: Incident at Blood Pass (opens in a new tab)
- Four Artists and a Man with No Name by Scherpschutter (opens in a new tab)
- West Meets East by Alexander Sesonske (opens in a new tab)
- A Comparison of 'Yojimbo', 'A Fistful of Dollars' and 'Last Man Standing' (opens in a new tab)
Related episodes
Episodes that share keywords with this one.
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Shared: Sergio Leone, Ennio Morricone
Sir Christopher Frayling, Josh Johnson
High & Low (1963)
Shared: Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Shared: John Ford
Kenneth E. Hall, Joseph McBride, Jon Cross, Ben Buckingham
Comments (1)
Anonymous Nice episode on Yojimbo. But I was struck how you missed that Eastwood's character is totally different from Mifune's. Eastwood is heartless trash who does one nice thing, while Mifune has a moral purpose in wanting to rid the town of the gangsters. And why does everyone still refer to Eastwood as the "man with no name"? he has a name in both Dollar movies. The only place he doesn't have a name is the PR movie posters. Stop it already. I was glad to hear from your guest that "For a few dollars more" is really a LVC movie and Eastwood is really a supporting role. Finally somebody gets that! I like in the commentary for Sanjuro the idea that Yojimbo and Sanjuro can be played in reverse order as Sanjuro is really not a "sequel," which makes the story all the more intriguing. Sergio was style over substance, so the Dollar films can hardly compete there, but oh what style!