Takashi Shimura

A startlingly relevant 'social problem film' (shakai-mono)--of its time and our own--and an existential melodrama by way of Hamlet.

The biggest impression left by Yojimbo is the characterization of Sanjuro, whose iconography of stoic cool (that inspired Clint Eastwood's antiheroic "Man with No Name") is consistently undercut with dashes of comical realism...

Synthesizes the traditions of the samurai narrative and the American western to create an intimate epic with deeply felt ground-level consequences.