Yojimbo with commentary

Long ago, I had a VHS tape of Yojimbo. For a long time, I watched it every day. I'd watch it while eating lunch or before work. If I was home alone, I would turn it on. I had Plan 9 From Outer Space on the same tape and half the time I would watch it, too.

So anyway, on the Criterion Channel, I watched it with commentary by Steven Prince. Learned many things I didn't know. He discussed samurai stuff, social changes in Japan both in the 1860's and the 1960's, references to Kurosawa's career, the effect the movie had on Toshiro Mifune's career----this was the movie that made him The John Wayne of Japan.

Susumu Fujita played the fencing instructor who was mad that he was overshadowed by Toshiro Mifune's character. In real life, Fujita has starred in Kurosawa's early films before the director pushed him aside for Mifune. Fujita was a good sport for taking the role.

There were all the scenes of people crying for their mothers, the part that was borrowed from The Glass Key, the political role the Yakuza played in postwar Japan.

Over the years, I've found the severed body parts harder to take and there's more blood in some scenes than others. I must have always known that in a situation like that, I would be one of the victims being hacked to death with a sword, not a samurai-with-no-name gracefully killing the bad guys. Why would anyone want to be a samurai? It seems like a lot of work.