Yojimbo

This movie is the original Japanese film that Clint Eastwood's A Fistful of Dollars was based on, and its one of the great samurai stories that were made in the sixties. There is a soft spot in my heart for the Japanese movies of the fifties, sixties and seventies, but they were hard to find unless you wanted to pay an arm and a leg, but now that they are all coming out on DVD the audience base will increase as more and more people get to see these classics.A masterless samurai finds himself in a feud torn village and begins to work both sides against each other for his own benefit. Set in 1860 Japan, the film is in black and white and this lends to the feel of the movie. Where the fight scenes are a lot of swordplay, the lack of color fits and helps the movie. There isn't a lot of bloodshed shown and what little there is isn't overpowering as in some later Japanese films. The director of this film is Akira Kurosawa has done some wonderful films like Ran and Seven Samurai, and this film ranks right up at the top.
There have been a lot of American movies made that were originally from foreign shores, but it seems that the best of the action films that are remade come from Japan. Now with companies like Netflix expanding their inventory of films to include more and more foreign made movies the audience will be able to finally see the movies that some of us have only heard about. If you haven't seen this film but have enjoyed the Eastwood film over the years, I would recommend that you find a copy of Yojimbo; it will be well worth your time and effort.