Film / Yojimbo

"I'll get paid for killing, and this town is full of people who deserve to die."

— Sanjūrō

Yojimbo (用心棒 - Yōjinbō, meaning "bodyguard") is a 1961 Japanese Jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is loosely based on the American novel Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett.

It stars Toshiro Mifune as a wandering rōnin who arrives in a town beset by criminals and decides to clean the place up (apparently for fun and profit). His method is simple, yet clever: he reduces the number of gangsters in the town by getting the two rival factions to go to war, then mops up the remainder. When asked about his name, he looks at a mulberry field and answers "Kuwabatake Sanjūrō".^note Which translates to "30-year-old mulberry field", so his real name remains a mystery.

An enormously influential film, it has had at least three direct remakes — Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (as a Western), Walter Hill's Last Man Standing (as a mob movie) and Albert Pyun's Omega Doom (as a sci-fi movie) — as well as whole-plot references and homages in numerous other films and television shows, including being the inspiration for John Belushi's Samurai character on Saturday Night Live.

A year later, it got a sequel titled Sanjuro, which is a bit more light-hearted. In 1970, Toshiro Mifune would reprise the character for two more installments: the crossover movie Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo and another standalone story Machibuse. Both movies are prequels as the former explains how Sanjuro became a ronin the first place while the latter has Sanjuro equipped with a daishō sword pairing, weapons that he loses in Yojimbo.

Not to be confused with Usagi Yojimbo which draws some influence from this movie.

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Tropes featured in Yojimbo include:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Quite a few of these. This is one reason this movie stands the test of time so well. In fact, although the plot revolves around the threat of violence, very little screentime actually depicts violence, so it hardly fits the modern concept of "action movie".
• Adaptation Amalgamation: While the movie's main influence is generally accepted as Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett's later novel The Glass Key (more specifically, its 1942 movie) was the only one Kurosawa himself outright cited. While the overall plot is definitely closer to the former, it does homage in the latter in particular scene where the hero gets seven shades of shit beaten out of him.
• Asshole Victim: At the end following the Curb-Stomp Battle of Sanjuro, Mayor Tazaemon chases Tokuemon with a knife and kills him.
• Bittersweet Ending: The town is free of the gangs, but thanks to how badly the war had escalated before the end, there isn't much left of the town, with the restaurateur and the cooper, and the Dirty Cop Hansuke being the only depicted adult males still alive and sane. As for Sanjuro, he may have conned some gold out of the gangs before wiping them out, but at the end of the day, he's still just a wandering rōnin with little to his name and nothing but the clothes on his back and the sword at his waist.
• Bloodless Carnage: Sometimes. During the fights, you won't see any wounds (except for one instance of Sanjūrō cutting off a guy's arm) and the swords often seem to slash nothing but air. There are a couple of times when this is averted, though: once when a thug gets cut up in an alleyway and blood spurts from his body almost immediately, and again when Unosuke has been slashed to bits and is very visibly bleeding out.
• Brick Joke: During the final battle, Sanjuro meets the young man he encountered in the beginning of the movie as he's begging for mercy. He reminds the kid of the boring, gruel-eating life of a farmer he shunned, noting how much better it seems after the end of a bloody gang war.
• Chekhov's Gun: The coffin-maker sizes Sanjuro up and builds one for him prematurely; it's this coffin that saves his life by allowing Gonji and said coffin-maker to smuggle him to safety after escaping from Ushitora's goons.
• Chekhov's Skill: Sanjūrō shows he's a crack-shot as a knife thrower by passing the time throwing a knife at a dry leaf blowing around in the wind. It helps him to defeat Unosuke, the gun wielder.
• Contract on the Hitman: Sanjuro leaves the first family he hires himself out to because he overhears them plotting to kill him when the job is finished, to avoid paying him.
• Crippling the Competition: Sanjuro is beaten senseless for rescuing the family that Ushitora's gang was holding hostage, one of them as a Sex Slave.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The climax. Sanjūrō takes out nine people (Ushitora, Unosuke, Inokichi, and their Mooks minus one whom Sanjūrō spares) in seconds without receiving a scratch.
• Deadly Euphemism:
  Sanjūrō: Cooper, two coffins... No. Better make that three.
• Diagonal Cut: One of the last things Sanjūrō does: cut the ropes binding Gonji with a single stroke, before turning around to go Walk the Earth some more.
• Dirty Cop: The local constable is useless and venal, and attempts to get a finders fee for recommending that Sanjūrō join one side of the gang war as a mercenary.
• Dirty Old Man: Tokuemon, the Sake Brewer.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Averted, although they give it a good try.
• Distressed Drink Jitters: After Sanjuro signs on with Seibei's gang, the leader almost immediately declares he will have an all-out war with his rival Ushitora. While he boasts of imminent victory, his anxiety about fighting to the death is obvious from the way the sake cup quivers in his hand, which is humorously contrasted with Sanjuro's relaxed pouring of the drink into it (and Sanjuro would be, given he has no intention of actually teaming up with either gangster, much less one he just overheard planning to betray and kill him after to avoid paying him.)
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Sanjūrō warns three mooks that mocked him earlier. Said mooks are all sentenced to death if caught and seem quite proud of it. Sanjūrō has thus no qualms and slays them all as a demonstration of his skills to the town's populace and utters the following badass line.
• Evil Plan: Ushitora seeks to usurp his old boss and take over the town.
• Evil Versus Evil: The status quo at the beginning of the movie. Sanjūrō's actions just turn it up to eleven.
• Fakeout Escape: Sanjūrō's escape from Ushitora's house starts by crawling inside a large wooden chest, to make everyone think he's already escaped.
• False Flag Operation: Sanjuro kills all of Nui's jailers while making it look like fifteen men did it. Unfortunately, he gets caught in the end anyway.
• A Fistful of Rehashes: The one that's thought to have started the rehashing chain of A Fistful of Dollars is itself an adaptation of The Glass Key, though its plot more closely follows Red Harvest.
• Gonk: Most of the bad guys, except for Unosuke. Inokichi's the real standout here.
• Goroawase Number: Sanjūrō is derived from an On'yomi reading of his age of 36 years (san-3, ju-10 ro[ku]-6).
• Guns Are Worthless: While Unosuke's revolver is a devastating weapon for most of the film, it doesn't mean much when you've got a knife through the forearm of your shooting hand.
• Guns vs. Swords: Sanjuro's katana vs. Unosuke's revolver. It should be noted that the gun makes Unosuke the only person in the movie who is a threat to Sanjuro until he finds a way to take it out of play.
• Heads or Tails?: The film's opening shot shows Sanjūrō arriving at a fork in the road. After a few seconds of pondering, he throws a stick into the air and bases his decision on where it lands. The rest, as they say, is history.
• Hollywood Healing: Played with. While Sanjūrō manages to heal quickly and apparently without lasting consequences after being beaten pretty badly, it takes him at least a week if not more to fully recover rather than being fine in a few days.
• Homage: The scene where Sanjūrō is thrown around by his face is an homage to the 1942 film version of The Glass Key.
• I Own This Town: The town has two parties that are out to run it.
• I Want My Mommy!: One of the gangsters at the final confrontation turns out to be the farmer's son Sanjuro met at the beginning of the film. When the rest of the gang get slaughtered and he's the only one left, the boy starts screaming for his mother, which stays Sanjuro's blade and saves his life.
• Job Title: Yojimbo means "bodyguard."
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Sanjuro translates to "thirty-year-old" but the ronin then states his real age is closer to forty. Toshiro Mifune was indeed forty-years old when making the movie.
• Mob War: Ushitora's gang and Seibei's gang have been fighting for quite some time before Sanjuro's arrival.
• Moment Killer: In a rare non-romantic example, just when Sanjūrō has manipulated the two gangs to go all out against each other, a messenger arrives saying that an official from the capital is coming, so the fight is called off and everyone conceals the evidence that there is a gang war going on until he leaves.
• Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: Sanjūrō gets the upper hand over Unosuke by hitting Unosuke's gun arm with a knife.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Kannuki tosses Sanjūrō around like a ragdoll during one of the torture sessions, breaking the lock on a storage box at one point. Sanjūrō hides in said box to trick the guards into thinking that he has escaped and then makes a break for it as they go on the hunt.
  • Inokichi unknowingly helps Gonji carry Sanjūrō out of town in the coffin.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Sanjuro is severely beaten by the villains when he releases the family.
• No Full Name Given:
  • Justified here. In the Edo period, peasants had surnames but were not allowed to say them in public unless they had special privileges, hence why most of the villagers solely use their first names. Only Seibei's family and Ushitora's family have their surnames revealed since they both hold powerful positions over the locals.
  • Double Subverted by Sanjuro himself. Sanjuro divulges his full name to Seibei, but said name was made up on the spot.
• Not Worth Killing: The only survivor of Sanjuro's Curb-Stomp Battle at the end among the villains is the boy who left his parents to be employed as a mook in town. Upon seeing Sanjuro slaughter everyone in lightning fast single strokes, he stops attacking and pathetically screams for his mother, which prompts Sanjuro to spare his life and order him to go back to his mother and "live a long life eating gruel".
• Not So Invincible After All: Sanjuro is by far the best swordfighter in the movie, and for much of the movie, he easily beats all opponents. However, he still needs to watch his back around Unosuke, the only person in town who carries a gun.
• One-Word Title: Yojimbo. It's even an example in English: Bodyguard.
• Pet the Dog
  • Sanjūrō manages to save a family that's been caught between the quarrels of the two gangs, which makes him less overtly antiheroic. In order to act a little more rugged, Sanjūrō threatens them with death if they don't get the hell out of there fast enough. He does so with good reason: if they're caught, they'll likely be killed. He also drags his beaten body out for a final showdown with the Ushitora gang rather than let them kill Gonji.
  • Also, at the very beginning of the film, he chances to see a farm boy quarreling with his parents; he intends to join one of the gangs, thinking that the excitement and riches are preferable to a boring life of farming and eating gruel. Near the end of the film, Sanjūrō actually has that same farmer-turned-gangster at swordpoint. Rather than cut him down, though, Sanjūrō just remarks to him that perhaps the gruel-eating life is better than this and orders him to leave. The boy, elated at this mercy, obeys and runs off.
• Playing Both Sides: This film is probably the codifying example, at least in cinema. It's the most identifiable element in the remakes A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing, and the film is often cited as a primary influence on later works that revolve around this premise.
• Police Are Useless: The local constable openly recruits for the gangs instead of trying to stop them, because he gets a rake-off for every man he brings them. The Inspector from Edo doesn't even notice that there's a gang war going on, because he's too busy trolling for bribes and being fawned over by everyone in town until Ushitora figures out how to make him leave.
• Prematurely Marked Grave: The local gravedigger sizes up Sanjūrō for the coffin he will need to build.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Inokichi is somewhere between being the big Dumb Muscle, and appearing endearing and harmless.
• Rewatch Bonus: The prequels Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo and Machibuse add more context to certain scenes.
  • When Unosuke shows off the revolver he acquired, Sanjuro only closes the windows after witnessing Unosuke fire off three shots without reloading. In the prequels, the gunslingers Sanjuro fought wielded single-shot percussion guns, so this is Sanjuro's first time seeing a repeating firearm.
  • Likewise, Sanjuro's antagonism towards Unosuke is due to his experience with another Samurai Cowboy Kuzuryu, who betrayed him and almost killed his love interest Umeno.
  • Sanjuro's rescue of Nui has an added layer of sadness considering that Nui may have reminded Sanjuro of his past love interests, especially Okuni who was also a Damsel in Distress.
• Rock Beats Laser: Unosuke and his overconfidence in his gun are no match for a superbly trained samurai like Sanjūrō, who defeats him easily with his throwing knife and a single deadly katana blow.
• Sanity Slippage: Tazaemon, the silk merchant, falls victim to this. His grip on reality is tenuous even at the start of the film, and by the end he appears to have gone completely insane.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Based on the poster, Sanjūrō is either going to cut your throat or take your head off with his katana.
• Shoo the Dog: When the family Sanjuro's helping is too shellshocked to do anything but thank him:
  Take the gold and run. Start a new life. [the family can hardly move for emotion, but all bow in respect] Just go! Stop groveling, I hate beggars. Run now or I swear I'll kill you myself!
• Showdown at High Noon: Sanjuro prepares for a Jidaigeki version of the showdown — problem is, his opponent has the only revolver in town.
• Sparing the Final Mook: Sanjuro defeats most of the gang, and sees that the last one left alive is the same young boy who was leaving his poor family's farm at the start of the movie. Seeing that the kid is no threat and terrified out of his mind, Sanjuro basically tells the kid to go home and live the life of a farmer instead of trying to be a gangster. The kid quickly complies.
• Succession Crisis: What started the mob war in the first place. Seibei wanted to make his son the next leader of the sole gang in town, and his right hand man Ushitora objected and decided to take over, taking half of Seibei's men with him.
• Tap on the Head: Hachi smashes a porcelain bottle over Kuma's head when the two are bickering.
• Those Two Guys: Hachi and Kuma, two former thugs of Ushitora's whom Sanjūrō holds hostage.
• Trailers Always Lie: The theatrical trailer shows Sanjuro and Unosuke facing off one-to-one in a deserted street, while in the actual film, Unosuke has more than half a dozen men behind him in that scene.
• Trash the Set: Sanjuro wrecks the hell out of the house after freeing Nui in order to trick Ushitora into thinking she was freed by Seibei's men.
• Unbuilt Trope:
  • Sanjuro is the direct inspiration for the Man With No Name and, by extension, the nameless cowboy archetype, but he also justifies or subverts some of the archetype's common traits that are usually taken for granted.
    • Like his American successors, Sanjuro is a wandering warrior, but the historical context behind his drifter status is very different. As noted by the Opening Scroll, Sanjuro became a drifter after his superiors, the shoguns, lost power in 1860, an early sign that the samurai class, along with the rōnin class, was becoming increasingly obsolete in Japan. In contrast, Sanjuro's cowboy counterparts in America are pioneers exploring the wild American territory in the west.
    • Sanjuro never reveals his real name, but it's justified here. Unlike peasants, samurai had the right of using their surnames in public, and a samurai's surname would have denoted his aristocratic bloodline. However, Sanjuro became a rōnin after losing the rank of samurai, so his decision to go by a fake name holds more significance since it represents his new life as a homeless nobody. Furthermore, Sanjuro's new alias is a ridiculous name that is Played for Laughs as it translates to "thirty-year-old mulberry field" or "thirty-year-old camellia" in a later adventure. In fact, most characters just refer to him as "the samurai" or "the two-bit samurai" if they're feeling disrespectful.
    • Although Sanjuro is a professional killer like the characters he inspired, his main weapon is a sword rather than a gun. In fact, with the exception of Unosuke, all of Sanjuro's enemies wield blades, meaning most of the battles revolve around sword duels rather than gunfights. This also changes the climatic showdown as it is not a battle in which the protagonist defeats the Big Bad in a gunfight by proving himself to be the superior gunslinger but rather a David Versus Goliath match in which a swordsman has to defeat a gunslinger by overcoming the technological advantage a gun has over a sword.
  • Unosuke is an early example of a Samurai Cowboy as he is a Japanese thug who wields a katana and an American revolver. While this makes him sound like a badass on paper, the movie also deconstructs this by establishing that Unosuke is a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond as he is the only gunslinger in a town where everyone else fights with swords or other melee weapons. As a result, Unosuke never actually draws his katana in combat since his revolver's ranged lethality renders it obsolete. In addition, he admits that Sanjuro is the best swordsman in town, so challenging Sanjuro to a sword fight would have been suicide.
• Understatement: Sanjuro warns the thugs in the English dub just before killing (and, in one case, dismembering) three of them, "It might hurt a little."
• Unwilling Suspension: Ushitora's gang to that to Gonji in the climax for the help he gave to Sanjuro. The coffin maker frees him when Ushitora and his remaining men are busy in the final showdown with Sanjuro.
• Walking the Earth: At the beginning, Sanjūrō wanders in whatever direction a casually thrown branch suggests.
• War for Fun and Profit:
  • The casket-maker has this attitude, at least until things escalate to the point where nobody cares about burying the dead any more, at which point he has no more customers.
  • Sanjūrō himself, at first. While he tells Gonji he's going to get rid of the gangs, his reasoning is basically summed up by the fact that he gets to kill men who deserve to die and get paid for it.
• Wimp Fight: Sanjūrō manipulates the two gangs into fighting each other by making one think they've just managed to hire him onto their side, so they announce an attack, only for Sanjūrō to just refuse. The two gangs are rather evenly matched and correspondingly clearly fearful about fighting each other in force with the outcome in doubt, but are unwilling to admit to a lack of mettle, and continuously inch forward and back to and from each other before a messenger announces an official is arriving into town so the gangs go off to conceal their conflict.
• Yakuza: Much like the actual yakuza, the word is never spoken aloud (the cast prefer the term "gambler," since the local racket started with the gambling business), but Yojimbo is basically a mob movie. It's not a particularly flattering depiction; the vice they trade in looks as cheap, sleazy, and tawdry as it is, and for most of the picture both gangs are too cowardly to even bother having a proper battle in the street, preferring to rough up innocent people, or at least those they don't yet know can fight back.

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