Sunday, December 27, 2009

#52: Yojimbo

(Akira Kurosawa, 1961)

This is just one of those movies I'm embarrassed to have never seen, as it is obviously one of the more famous Kurosawa films. Remade (loosely) as A Fistful of Dollars, which in turn was remade (poorly) as Last Man Standing, Yojimbo is that perfect kind of movie about which there isn't much to say.

Mifune is awesome as the masterless Samurai, and the music is classic cool. Masaru Satu, who worked with Kurosawa on many of his movies, combined jazz and traditional Japanese motifs to come up with the perfect accompaniment to the film - weirdly enough, the score it reminded me of the most is Lalo Schiffrin's score from Bullitt, though unlike that masterpiece the score here does not surpass the film itself.

This is the first of many Kurosawa films I have to watch, plus I'll be watching Seven Samurai again, since I haven't seen it in so long. If this is any indication, I'm really looking forward to the assignment.

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