Yojimbo
is a 1961 Japanese samurai film co-written, produced, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film stars Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada, Daisuke Katō, Takashi Shimura, Kamatari Fujiwara, and Atsushi Watanabe. In the film, a rōnin arrives in a small town where competing crime lords vie for supremacy. The two bosses each try to hire the newcomer as a bodyguard.
Plot
In 1860, during the final years of the Edo period, a rōnin wanders through a desolate Japanese countryside. While stopping at a farmhouse for water, he overhears an elderly couple lamenting that their only son, not wanting to waste his life as a farmer, has run off to join the "gamblers" who have descended on a nearby town overrun with criminals and divided between two rival bosses.
More details
| author | Akira Kurosawa |
|---|---|
| contentLocation | Japan |
| director | Akira Kurosawa |
| editor | Akira Kurosawa |
| genre | action crime drama |
| keywords | bakumatsu beat bugyō burn capture chattel driven mad edo period elderly couple expect fight final years gambling debt gang war government official izakaya kidnap kill morning personal property rōnin safe house sake set on fire stab young man |
| musicBy | Masaru Sato |
| nomination | Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White |
| producer | Akira Kurosawa Ryūzō Kikushima Tomoyuki Tanaka |
| productionCompany | Kurosawa Production Toho |
| publisher | Toho |
| recordedAt | Japan |
| theme | action drama japanese jidaigeki |