Yojimbo (film)  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Yojimbo is a 1961 jidaigeki (period drama) film by Akira Kurosawa. It tells the story of a ronin (masterless samurai), portrayed by Toshirō Mifune, who arrives in a small town where competing crime lords make their money from gambling. The ronin convinces each crime lord to hire him as protection from the other. By careful political maneuvering and the use of his sword, he brings peace, but only by encouraging both sides to wipe each other out in bloody battles. The title of the film translates as 'bodyguard'. The ronin calls himself Kuwabatake Sanjuro (meaning "Mulberry Field thirty-year-old"), which he seems to make up while looking at a mulberry field by the town. Thus, "Sanjuro" can be viewed as the original "Man with No Name" concept, made famous in the Clint Eastwood-Sergio Leone collaborations.