Yojimbo (film)

Yojimbo (用心棒, Yōjinbō) is a 1961 jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It tells the story of a rōnin, portrayed by Toshiro Mifune, who arrives in a small town where competing crime lords vie for supremacy. The two bosses each try to hire the newcomer as a bodyguard.

Based on the success of Yojimbo, Kurosawa's next film, Sanjuro (1962), was altered to incorporate the lead character of this film. In both films, the character wears a rather dilapidated dark kimono bearing the same family mon (likely the emblem of his former samurai clan, before he became a rōnin).

Plot

It is 1860, and the era of the Tokugawa shogunate is coming to a close. A rōnin, or masterless samurai, wanders into a small town divided by a gang war between two gangsters, Seibei and Ushitora. Ushitora used to be Seibei's right-hand man, until Seibei decided that his son Yoichiro would succeed him. Tazaemon, the silk merchant and mayor, backs Seibei, while Tokuemon the sake brewer is allied with Ushitora. Gonji, the owner of an inn, advises the stranger to leave while he can, but after sizing up the situation, the rōnin tells Gonji that the town would be better off with both sides dead, and that he intends to stay.