There were movies like Yojimbo that seemed to be inspired by American westerns, but this took it further. A man with a shotgun claiming to be a hunter wanders into an isolated corrupt town in the mountains in then-present day Japan. The owner of the mill, the town's largest employer, is harboring criminals who harass residents and act as his bodyguards. The town has a sheriff who is just a guy who wants to find who raped and murdered his wife.
There's a bar where the men hang out. There are fights where all they do is punch each other in the face and break chairs over their heads without injuring or killing each other. They'll occasionally throw in a Judo thing.
There was a scene in the saloon where there was music and dancing, but there were only a few women so it was mostly men dancing together.
It was kind of repetitive. There's a lot of debate over who'll be the new sheriff. A double-barreled shotgun wasn't the best weapon for this situation, but they wore better shoes, not like American westerns where the men limp around in high heeled boots.
I liked Kurosawa's High and Low where the detectives were armed with little .32 automatics and the head detective had a tiny .25 automatic, the sort of gun American ladies carry in their handbags. The big, stupid-looking guns in American westerns always bothered me. But in this movie, the sheriff walked around with a rifle.
Available on the Criterion Channel until the end of the month.
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