Yojimbo

Pros: Mifune, and a joyous story to watch unfold

Cons: Some over-acting by the secondary players

The Bottom Line: The Bottom Line had its hand bitten off by a rabid dog.

Review: The opening credit sequence of Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo (The Bodyguard)" features a scruffy ronin, his back to the camera, scratching at his scalp and under his tattered robe. The year is 1860, and Japan's Tokugawa Dynasty has ended, sending a squadron...

Pros: Superb direction and performances

Cons: Japanese names and subtitles make it difficult to keep track of characters

The Bottom Line: A humorous, thrilling samurai epic, with pointed comments about the nature of war and conflict.

Review: The title of my review of course misquotes Gandhi. However, it accurately sums up the plot of Akira Kurosawa's classic film much better than Gandhi's famous quote. Here we've got a case of a town embroiled in a conflict that leads to "an eye for an eye...

Pros: Poetic cinematography, beautiful pacing, Mifune, Mifune Mifune

Cons: For me? None.

The Bottom Line: Yojimbo is a masterpiece that spawned a good Leone directed trilogy. Also: bonus essay on other films and remakes.

Review: There is not a Best or Worst Remake section at Epinions, and while this review may be technically long enough to be considered a review of .Yojimbo., it is here with other films to be part of the Pearannoyed Then and Again write-off (T & A). So ...

Pros: Kurosawa's Direction, Script, Editing, Cinematography, Music, Sound, & Cast.

Cons: None.

The Bottom Line: Yojimbo is a Magnificent, Witty Masterpiece from Akira Kurosawa & Co. starring Toshiro Mifune.

Review: While Akira Kurosawa is famously known for putting the ideas of American westerns into his films, notably his samurai movies. One of his biggest influences from that genre was John Ford who also praised the Japanese director. When the 1960s approached, ...

Pros: Beautiful, Exciting, Mifune, Kurosawa, what more could you want?

Cons: Not one.

The Bottom Line: A highly influential, and infinitely entertaining film. A must for all lovers of movies.

Review: First, a note on my intent: I plan to develop a series of reviews dealing with Samurai related movies and books. Most of them will be on topics that are definitely within the samurai genre. Others will have a more tenuous connection.

Most of...

Pros: Mifune, classic Kurosawa, the musical score, the evil wife

Cons: I have seen the spin-offs too many times to be fascinated by the plot

The Bottom Line: This is another Kurosawa masterpiece. Mifune far outshines Eastwood or Willis! Treat yourself to the original! It can't hurt.

Review: This is the story that inspired the first spaghetti Western, FISTFULL OF DOLLARS, and more recently, LAST MAN STANDING, with Bruce Willis. The story holds no surprises for me, having watched Leone's version too many times in a house where only Westerns...

Pros: great scenes, story

Cons: it was the reason they made Last Man Standing...ugh

The Bottom Line: yes

Review: A wonderful example of how a foreign director can take an American genre and make it better, Yojimbo is one of the best western movies ever made. Ok, its not really a western movie, or is it? Yojimbo is a black and white movie about a samurai who ...

Pros: Clean, well-crafted, well-directed

Cons: May seem slow to today's audiences

Review: It was the Daniel Pinkwater novel, Alan Mendelsohn, Boy From Mars, that first drew us, indirectly, to this excellent Kurosawa film. Leonard Neeble and Alan Mendelsohn, the protagonists of Pinkwater’s book, receive Yojimbo’s Japanese-English...

Pros: Kurosawa, Mifune, and that's just for starters ...

Cons: None whatsoever ...

Review: While Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key were filmed twice under those titles, both in classic and less-than-classic versions (and The Maltese Falcon was even more loosely adapted as the Bette Davis vehicle, Satan Met a Lady), while...

Pros: Story, Toshiro Mifune, Cinematography, Direction

Cons: Film deteriorated, cropped, no extras, expensive

The Bottom Line: The Criterion release does not do justice to this classic samurai movie. A 3 1/2 star movie, rounded to four.

Review: Yojimbo (1961) OK, OK, I know what you're thinking - what could this guy possibly write that would add anything meaningful to the reams of information already published about this Akira Kurosawa flick? If you're asking yourself who or what is ...