Yojimbo (1961) - Akira Kurosawa

Ah yes, Yojimbo, a clas*ic nameless protagonist' film. The film follows the experiences of Sanjuro (literally 'thirty-year-old') a ronin who wanders into a basically empty town with two rival Yakuza gangs inhabiting it. The two gangs realize thata samurai of Sanjuro's skillon their side would allow them to easily destroy their rivals. Sanjuro works for one gang and then flips to the other at the tip of a hat as if he has a motive behind acting as a Yojimbo for these gangs. It turns out that he's trying to help the few remaining townspeople by destroying the gangs from the inside.

The movie has many many sub plots and they are fairly important to the rest of the story, but they won't be mentioned in this blog. As far as filmography goes, it's a typical Kurosawa film with few camera shots that really stay with you, but it has some good acting in it. The movie was influenced heavily by the western film genre. This is apparent in the final showdown when dust is blowing around and Sanjuro approaches hisadversaries on a main road in a clas*ic gunslinger st*le sequence. There's even a yakuza gang member who has a revolver circa 1800's. If you like bad-ass samurai dudes and good movies you'll be doing yourself a favor by watching this.

RANDOM UPDATE: Totally PSYCHED that Final Fantasy X is being remade for the PS3 and the PSVITA! Also watching the anime 'Captain Harlock', can you say best anime ever?