This review originally appeared on my old blog Stranded Below Nirvana a whopping 13 years ago. (Slightly) revised and re-examined for your enjoyment here on Cinema Dual!

The movie opens. A man stands in the foreground, his back to the camera. We don’t know him yet, but the camera tells us everything. The mountains in the background are positively diminutive, telling us this man is larger than life, and over the course of the next two hours he’s going to prove that perception correct. His cadence, and the way the camera follows him, further defines his character. He walks with the casual stride of someone who’s been places, who’s lived and can handle himself without show, without dramatics. His largest concern are the fleas in his clothing, and he gait is half swagger, half twitch as he scratches for relief. The music swells with a jarring Western-driven fanfare recalling the work Ennio Morricione would later do for Sergio Leone as we follow this ronin to a fork in the road. Which direction to take? A stick tossed in the air points determines his destination, and our own. Yojimbo has begun.  Continue reading “Yojimbo (1961)”