“Yojimbo” and “Sanjuro” Films by Akira Kurosawa Essay

Introduction to Kurosawa’s style

Yojimbo is set in a small town seemingly isolated from the rest of the world, a small stage on which a drama unfolds as seen through the eyes of a ronin who calls himself Sanjuro, played by Toshiro Mifune. Kurosawa’s style is evident from the first frame as the camera stays close to Sanjuro’s back as he walks toward the arena, the music both ominous and jaded. When he reaches the town, windows open, gangsters and geishas peer out, and by now the audience knows more or less what is to follow. The opening sequence establishes the plot and the ending even as it creates suspense and anticipation.

In Sanjuro, the same character is asleep in a temple when he overhears a school of samurai discussing an event in their town. Again, the plot is quickly outlined, lines are drawn and the contrast between the ronin and the young samurais is established.

Kurosawa as a master storyteller

The story of Yojimbo has been described as “the apocalypse of the business class, the incarnation of every traditionalist’s most fervent dream, its drama of samurai against the merchant, its portrayal of a world rent by greed, controlled by thugs, but brought down by Sanjuro’s sword, constructs a fable about the end of capitalism” (Price 223). It is a revenge fantasy against a dehumanized world, a tale so effectively told that within the first few minutes the viewer has aligned himself with Sanjuro. Yet it is more than that. Yojimbo is a greatly entertaining film that is also instructive; that is, its script is rooted in social significance even though that aspect is not immediately obvious. As Donald Ritchie says, “Kurosawa is a moralist; like all stylists, he manages to hide that fact supremely well” (240). One of Kurosawa’s characteristics, then, is that he is a master storyteller.

That is also evident in Sanjuro where the theme is appearance and reality. Much of the action takes place in lush, sunlit gardens and rockeries where birds sing and a brook babbles among blossoming trees. It is sunny and peaceful. The town is richer, the characters are better dressed than in Yojimbo. The theme of the film is that people should not be fooled by appearances. Sanjuro’s slovenly dress, like the kidnapped Chamberlain’s horse face, says nothing about his character, a lesson the young samurai learn the hard way. Also, behind closed doors on those sunny, peaceful days, contrary to appearances men are making plans to corrupt the entire community.

A psychodrama in both films

Another characteristic is the psychodrama the main characters undergoes in the course of the film. Yojimbo is set in a transitional period when the sword is being replaced by the gun, materialism is becoming the sole creed and criminals seem to be taking over society. The ronin, in a time when the middle-class has filled the power vacuum left by the collapse of the Togukawa dynasty, is an anachronism even to himself. The film centers on the clash between the old culture and the new. Sanjuro represents the old. He was once a great samurai who trained himself in the bushido tradition but now has lapsed into indifference. He does not shave, he scratches himself and he asks for money, actions which he would have considered unthinkable as a younger man. He is interested only in survival even if his life lacks purpose. In the town, he finds a challenge that will defer the final realization that he is no longer needed. His opposite number is Unosuke, played by Tatsuya Nakadai, a vicious young man who brings a pistol to the town. The two will face off in the final scene and though the new culture loses the battle, it is clear that it will win the war.

In Sanjuro, these two meet in the final scene again but this time Sanjuro wants to demonstrate that a samurai’s life is a violent one, not the neat, ritualistic one the young samurais have created. To get to this point, Sanjuro has had to do far too much killing. His legacy should be to dissuade others from following in his footsteps.

Musical score in “Yojimbo” and “Sanjuro”

Every element in these Kurosawa films combines to engage the viewer, including the musical score which is mostly minimalist but filled out in Yojimbo with signature tunes for each major character, while in Sanjuro only the ronin has one. The music in Yojimbo cues the viewer that another character is entering the stage, that character’s condition, and gives a warning that something is about to happen to him. The music is part of the narrative. The geishas’ music is light, bouncy, and rapid, resembling the way they move down the street. When Sanjuro is angry the music gets deeper, more ominous. A few notes indicate restlessness, then anticipation. In Sanjuro, however, silence prevails, and music indicates the samurai’s mood only after the killing is over, which leaves more time for talking in this very talkative film.

An example of master storytelling

The master storyteller: the scene in Yojimbo in which Sanjuro drinks sake in Gon’s inn is not only good cinema but also one of the most ingenious methods of overcoming the enemy of all narrative art, exposition. The inn’s shutters open up to one part of the town after another, with Gon describing what goes on there in between sliding them open and closed. By the end of the scene, the viewer has been brought up to date without any sense of the action being interrupted. In Sanjuro, the ronin positions himself to see as much as he can while being as comfortable as possible. In that way, too, exposition advances the plot instead of stalling it.

The sub-plot in “Yojimbo” and “Sanjuro”

The sub-plot: Stephen Prince’s analysis of Yojimbo focuses on the scene in which prisoners are swapped under the watchful gaze of the two rival gangs. As with the rest of the film, a good story is being told while its significance reaches the audience on a less conscious level. In this case, Prince points out that the “shots become mirrors of each other, compositions reverberate as twins. Each gang is a reflection of the other and their mutual gaze defines an unremittingly savage and corrupt world, where crime feeds on itself and endlessly reproduces” (228). In that world the samurai is an anachronism whose strength and skill are useless. As Prince says, “the film admits how artificial, provisional and ultimately ineffective is the solution Sanjuro offers” (230). He adds, “capitalism has been defeated but only at the cost of destroying time and the world” (231) so that when the samurai leaves town there is no sense of triumph, only a dreary sense of continuity.

The departure of the ronin in Sanjuro is perhaps more poignant. He leaves a prosperous community for unknown prospects. They are still rich, he is still poor.

The best music example

Music gives the reunion between mother, husband, and child in Yojimbo its emotional power. Suddenly cultural restraints are shrugged off as the music breaks loose into an outpouring of love and relief. Few scenes have no musical accompaniment but it is when the mother breaks free from her captors, her hands still tied behind her back, and rushes forward to where her husband and child reach through the shutters for her that it is at its most rapturous best. There is nothing to equal that scene in Sanjuro.

Protagonist as a role model

All these are significant factors in making Yojimbo and Sanjuro classics but there is one more to be added to the list, and it may be the most important one. Prince notes that the director often employs his heroes as explicit role models for the audience (40), and that is certainly the case in Yojimbo. The ronin represents traditional Japan, now long obsolete, confronting the crass materialism of the merchant class. When the character played by Tatsuya Nakadai, Unosuke demonstrates his pistol for the town’s officer, the expression on Mifune’s face is a mixture of shock and anger but there is also a sense of resignation as he lowers the shutters, an awareness that his time is past. Yet he faces the gunman in the last fight scene with a jaunty walk made jauntier by the musical score and outdoes him with guile, agility, and a skillfully thrown knife. It is the last hurrah for his era. More men will come with more guns to bury the last samurai but for now, the forces of evil and modernity have been defeated. The significance of the role model may be that he is an individual who stands up against the trend of his times, even though he stands alone.

In Sanjuro there will be other conspiracies, the young samurai will join the region’s political establishment and hatch plots of their own but perhaps they will always be guided by the role model Sanjuro provided for them once.

The reason Kurosawa’s films can be seen again and again

These two films are fascinating for the glimpse they provide of an alien culture and anesthetic very different from our own, yet the characters and what motivates them are instantly recognizable. Kurosawa’s films are often likened to Westerns but anyone who has seen The Magnificent Seven or A Fistful of Dollars knows that his films cannot be transposed into other cultures; or, perhaps it is more to the point to say, as Joseph Anderson does, that “the Americanization of Kurosawa’s film entailed domestication of style, the substitution of dialogue and pedestrian camerawork for its essentially visual qualities, the vitality of its cutting and imagery (qt. in Prince 204). Kurosawa, to my mind, is a born storyteller who has learned to bend his difficult medium to his needs. He is also a visual artist with an instinctive grasp of how to communicate his ideas vividly. That is why his films are a pleasure to watch over and over.

Works Cited

Prince, Stephen. The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa. Princeton NJ: Princeton UP, 1989.

Richie, Donald. “Methods, Technique and Style.” Perspectives on Akira Kurosawa. Ed. James Goodwin. New York: G.K. Hall & Co, 1994.