yojimbo.and.samurai.

– First week.

– Forward: Now, the first post is on Yojimbo directed by Akira Kurosawa. Before I type down anything, I should note that the future posts will all be in a list form. Cinema is an art form with such diversity in content that it’s hard to find a subject to start with. SO, I’ve been thinking of the approach to take—a list.

– First Impression: I am not too familiar with Japanese cinema in general, and this is only the second Kurosawa film I’ve watched. I’d say that I quite like his films in regard to his cinematic style. It is quite new for me and presents a foreign society quite successfully to me. For the two movies I have watched, Throne of Blood and Yojimbo, Kurosawa has created a completely isolated, unrealistic world in the films (even though, for samurai films, they are supposed to set in Tokugawa era)and totally succeeded.

– Opening Sequence: The first element that grabbed my attention was the opening sequence with an alien/unfamiliar setting. With a long shot and a unique sounded score, the sequence introduced our main character—a masterless samurai that walks and lives in a 19th-century Japanese society.

– Narrative: I find the plot is simple and it is gradually revealed to the viewers as the movie goes on. It follows the plotline of a samurai film, as David Desser defined, which tells the story of a hero with a sword who (usually accidentally) takes up an obligation and has to engage himself in a conflict.

– Theme: I think Yojimbo is a well-made, commercial movie. It does not go beyond the heart but communicates the themes like honour and duty. It honours our samurai’s sense of justice and his good deed, while also somewhat demonstrates the spirit of a masterless samurai of doing what is right. However it is a samurai drama, there is no such expression of “mono no aware” in Yojimbo, unlike the Nostalgic Samurai Dramas. The hero does not die by the end of the movie and achieves a “nobility of failure” according to Ivan Morris. Therefore, Yojimbo is more like a Western movie, which is also the reason why it is well-received by the West.

– Style and Cinematography: Kurosawa’s style of shots are also worth exploring. For example, his use of the dynamic background with deep focus at 84′. In this shot, Sanjuro is in a wooden barrel with Gonji in the foreground. At the same time, the background is not boring and static. We can see Ushitora’s gang wandering in the background and the smoke. I have found this video that analyses his control of movement within the frames. Watch this:

– The Weekly Theme (Transnational Cinema): What is “transnational cinema”? The birth of the branch in cinema studies is the result of globalisation. With the ever more increasing communications among the world, I suppose transnational cinemas stands for the creation of a cinematic language for the world population. Yojimbo is a great example of this type of films. As I’ve mentioned before, Yojimbo contains elements from the Japanese cinema but it’s also like a Western film. The reading this week suggests that Yojimbo is one of the first “Sword Films” in which introduced many Western ideas. For one, the protagonist in the film is a “gun-for-hire”, acted as a figure in a competitive capitalist society. Another point is that the antagonist in the film has transformed from the “general society/system” (traditional) to a specific group of people that are in the film. In this case, the bad guys are the two fighting gangs in the little town.

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