Yojimbo
Starring: Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yōko Tsukasa
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Akira Kurosawa
Producer: Tomoyuki Tanaka
Yojimbo (Japanese: 用心棒, Hepburn: Yōjinbō; lit. Bodyguard) is a 1961 Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa, who also co-wrote the screenplay and was one of the producers. The film stars Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada, Daisuke Katō, Takashi Shimura, Kamatari Fujiwara, and Atsushi Watanabe.
Trivia
- Nominated for: Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.
- Based on Red Harvest (novel by Dashiell Hammett).
- Kurosawa stated that a major source for the plot was the 1942 film noir classic The Glass Key, an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 1931 novel of the same name.
- Kurosawa scholar David Desser, and film critic Manny Farber claim that Red Harvest was the inspiration for the film; however, Donald Richie and other scholars believe the similarities are coincidental.
- Thus, the character can be viewed as an early example of the "Man with No Name" (other examples of which appear in several earlier works, including Red Harvest).
Filming Locations
- Japan
Previous Showings
5 Runs • 5 Festivals
3,742 tickets sold
All runs on record (5):
- September 12, 1998 · 224 ticketsAkira Kurosawa Festival
- March 13 - 16, 2010 · 1,351 ticketsAkira Kurosawa Film Festivalw/ The Hidden Fortress
- August 8 - 11, 2015 · 1,243 ticketsSummer 2015 Forty Classics from the Golden Age Including Kurosawa in Augustw/ Stray Dog
- March 6 - 8, 2020 · 0 ticketsAkira Kurosawa Film Festivalw/ The Hidden Fortress
- August 20 - 21, 2022 · 924 ticketsSummer 2022w/ The Hidden Fortress