[quote=“The Gringo, post:20, topic:2244”]Yojimbo.
A Fistful of Dollars is almost a shot-to-shot rip…errr…remake.[/quote]
I think FoD ain’t that close to Yojimbo. I think Last Man Standing is closer to FoD than FoD to Yojimbo.
@Paco: I have got Sanjuro in my DVD rack, but haven’t watched it yet…
Well, I think it is. The only really major new scene is when Volonté ambushes the troops next to the river and mows them all down.
I think I have to rewatch Yojimbo…
The story is the same, but the style is quite different.
FoD is nevertheless a self-contained work. The style is the most important thing, not the story, even if this story is indeed a good one.
Just like a good picturization of a book, it “borrows” many ideas, but turns them in something own.
[quote=“Stanton, post:24, topic:2244”]The story is the same, but the style is quite different.
FoD is nevertheless a self-contained work. The style is the most important thing, not the story, even if this story is indeed a good one.
Just like a good picturization of a book, it “borrows” many ideas, but turns them in something own.[/quote]
I think you’re right, Stan. Another story would have made a impressive western as well. Leone’s genius iis in this case more important than the plot.
Very close call. I’m not sure which is the better film, but I’ve voted for Yojimbo, possibly not for the right reasons.
Fistful of Dollars is amazing, & enormously significant, but the sequels are even better, so it’s only my fourth favourite Leone movie (after OUaT, GB&U, & FaFDM). Whereas Yojimbo is pretty much my favourite Kurosawa film.
It’s enormously inventive. Even though it falls in the usual samurai era setting of many of Kurosawa’s films, the style & atmosphere & music are very unique. & Leone (+ other SW directors) really borrowed from that style & the eerie atmosphere it creates (although Kurosawa was also borrowing somewhat from western directors like John Ford). So all-in-all watching Yojimbo feels a lot like watching a SW, but in another time & place.
How about Magnificent Seven vs. Seven Samurai?
Yojimbo was also hugely influential in Japanese cinema, starting the trend of yakuza movies & swordsman flicks like Zatoichi, which were less about heroic samurai & more about wily tough guys.
Very different movies, despite having the same story. I think I prefer Magnificent Seven because it’s an upbeat fun adventure movie, & probably my favourite of the conventional heroic style westerns. Seven Samurai has more depth, but it’s a long haul, maybe too long. It has quite a downbeat wistful ending, despite the heroes winning. It’s a great film, but other Kurosawa films had more impact on me, like Rashomon or Throne of Blood.
Toshiro Mifune did star in a Eurowestern, Red Sun (1971)
But as far as I know Clint Eastwood didn’t do any Samurai movies ;D
Yep. That’s what my avatar is. ;D
I love the scenes of Bronson & Mifune on the road & the macho rivalry between their characters, but I thought the second half was kindof boring.
[quote=“Lindberg, post:30, topic:2244”]Toshiro Mifune did star in a Eurowestern, Red Sun (1971)
But as far as I know Clint Eastwood didn’t do any Samurai movies ;D[/quote]
He would’ve made a much better one than Tom Cruise!
Not a samurai movie, but Eastwood did direct Letters from Iwa Jima. I haven’t seen it, but the Japanese must have been impressed - they awarded him with the Order of the Rising Sun.
IMHO that’s his most impressive work as a director, and that’s the film he should be remembered for.
I know many would think this blasphemous but I’m gonna go with ‘Yojimbo’ for the reason I like “Jidaigeki”, or “Samurai cinema” as much as Spaghetti Westerns (along with film Noir). ‘Yojimbo’ is of course the first as well, though it is a disguised adaptation of Dashiell Hammet’s ‘Red Harvest’ (one of the greatest books ever written; it single handedly invented the “hard-boiled”/“noir” genre), and the later film is quite close, though still one of my favourites.
‘Yojimbo’ also stars one of my favourite actors, Mifune Toshiro, who is of course to Japanese cinema what Lee Van Cleef was to Spaghetti Westerns (or at least if you are a true fan of Spaghetti Westerns and haven’t t only seen Leone’s ‘Man With No Name’ films*).
*Obviously Clint Eastwood plays the part Mifune Toshiro played but you know what I am trying to say (not easy since I have been awake since yesterday morning)!