The Kurosawa Century #3: Samurai Code and Mentorship: Yojimbo (1961); Sanjuro (1962); Red Beard (1965)

 Yojimbo (1961, 110 Minutes)

Toshiro Mifune stars as a wandering samurai who gets caught up in a local power struggle in Yojimbo. With a masterful soundtrack by Masuru Sato and Kurosawa leaning into a pulpier style, it set the template for 60s cinema that would influence all action movies to come after. 

The template for the story, a hired gun comes into town and plays both sides can be traced to the 1929 novel Red Harvest by Dashell Hammett and has been used many times since in different settings. Sergio Leone simply transferred the story into a spaghetti western for A Fistful of Dollars. But none measure up to Yojimbo.

Kurosawa visual style is unparalleled. The fight scenes were shot for the camera, not the editing room, allowing the sequences to play out on a wide canvas. Mifune offers his services to help one side and overhears their plan to betray him. The number of double crossings keeps piling up, but Mifune is always several steps ahead of everyone, although he does make a few mistakes. 

Style overpowers plot. Just watching the characters interact and getting Mifune's reactions, or the dusty claustrophobic feel of the town where everyone hates each other's guts. It also pits the classical world against the modern. The samurai views the greed among the yakuza gangs as primitive and stupid, as he says, "the town is full of men better off dead." 

The dark humor and swaggering style still feel fresh decades later, the sort of movie Tarantino's always been chasing. I'd like to see a story set in a town where tech companies are carving out territory for data centers and a soldier with a conscience comes in, but I guess that's what many Jason Statham movies do (The Beekeeper).  

Yojimbo marks Kurosawa's mastery of elevated pulp cinema, told in a gritty and hyperreal style. The sound of slashing swords, the gun symbolizing the devolution of old-world values, or just the satisfying feeling of having justice served against the corrupt in spectacular ways makes Yojimbo immensely satisfying. 

Sanjuro (1962, 95 Minutes)

Toshiro Mifune reprised his role for Sanjuro, this time mentoring a group nine samurai caught up in a clan war. If Yojimbo was a drawing upon pulp genres, Sanjuro unfolds more like a chess match. The violence is less about fighting, but strategy and position. Sanjuro tries to teach them about human nature, and a true victory is when violence is averted. 

Sanjuro is both tighter and denser than Yojimbo, there's more comedy and attempts at deception. As a mentor, Sanjuro believes actions are better than words. His understanding of human nature makes him an excellent teacher, although at the end he questions whether his students learned anything. 

The ending is famous for a graphic fight that ends quickly, it features blood spraying, displaying the true consequences of violence. Sanjuro might not have the panache of Yojimbo, but it broadens the themes and goes for a more polished style. Both films are best experienced back-to-back.

Red Beard (1965, 184 Minutes)

Red Beard is remembered for a few things. It was one of Kurosawa's longest productions, stretched out over two years and going way overbudget. Sadly, it was also the final collaboration between Kurosawa and Mifune, their friendship deteriorated during production over a few issues. Mifune was upset about the slow process and having to turn down other acting offers, in the years to follow each took snipes at each other in the press. The sixteen films they made together stands as perhaps the most durable examples of a director and actor in all of cinema history. 

The story for Red Beard was adapted from the works of Shugoro Yamamato and Fyodor Dostoevsky. The time is the early 19th Century, and the setting is a clinic outside Tokyo that offers treatment to the poor. Mifune stars as Dr. Kyojo Niide, the taciturn doctor who runs the hospital who is also a martial artist. Despite his forbidding demeanor he takes a serious interest in the lives of his patients. He tells his staff, behind every illness is a misfortune. 

When a new doctor arrives by a bureaucratic mistake, Dr. Noboru Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama), he's appalled at the conditions and state of the patients he treats. He's ready to quit on the first day, but Niide persuades him to stay. Yasumoto notices others on the staff are in awe of Dr. Niide. He displays patience with the younger staff, shows humility, realistic about limitations, but pledges to save anyone he possibly can. 

Red Beard is more episodic than most Kurosawa films. There are many memorable scenes: Yasumoto lets his guard down with a mentally disturbed patient known as "the mantis" and almost loses his life, we get one brief moment when Niide shows off his martial arts skills to defeat a street gang forcing young girls into prostitution, and a harrowing surgical scene with an unruly patient. 

The story also spends time with patients; their stories are told in flashbacks. A dying man regrets failing his daughters, while another recalls his tragic marriage. Much of the story in the second half of the film is about efforts to free a girl from a brothel. The film displays how acts of compassion and empathy create a culture of decency in the face of oppressive poverty. 

Watching Red Beard in tandem with Yojimbo and Sanjuro reveals an evolving theme of heroism and what it means. The comic violence and cynicism of Yojimbo gives way to the wearied courage of Sanjuro. Red Beard suggests heroism may simply be alleviating suffering; a life of anonymity and quiet struggle with no recognition except for the trust of the community. 

Stylistically, Red Beard also stands in contrast to earlier Kurosawa films. Kurosawa adopted a more formal style, inspired more by paintings and still photography. The pace is steadier and more contemplative. It would also be his final film shot in black and white, marking Red Beard as a transition film between Kurosawa's early and late styles. Thematically, questions about how to live properly and live a meaningful life, also connect Red Beard to Ikiru and his later work.