"Yojimbo"

Many people who are interested in Japanese history and characters are familiar with the feature films of Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998). "The Seven Samurai", "The Castle in the Cobweb Forest", "Ran" and "Kagemusha", among others, present the world of the samurai as the master director saw it from the 1950s to the 1980s. Yojimbo" (1961) also belongs in this series. The film is shot in black and white and is a cynical parable on the depravity of mankind, which was well suited to the Japanese zeitgeist of the 1960s.
At the very end of the Edo period (1603-1868), the old order was disintegrating and local power was slipping away from the shogunal authorities. In "Yojimbo", Ushitora and Seibei, two local potentates, merchants who act like gangster bosses, fight each other in a provincial town. Both are surrounded by a horde of fools who attack each other with swords and other instruments. Kuwabatake Sanjuro (played by Mifune Toshiro), a ronin and the only real samurai among the film characters, arrives in the city. His services as a yojimbo (bodyguard) are courted, but he too is to be betrayed. At first, Sanjuro plays the passive observer and plays the two gangs off against each other.
In the end, it comes to a Western-style reckoning in the middle of the deserted main street. The samurai Sanjuro takes on the Ushitora gang alone. They move slowly towards each other - bad luck for the gang, because nobody stands a chance against the ronin's fast blade.
The series shows some of the most important characters as they are directed by the master Kurosawa himself. Of course, the characters can also be used without the director in other scenes as armed people, robbers or ronin. They should mainly be painted in shades of brown and blue. Sanjuro wears beige and green (not black) clothes. Only the boss Ushitora, his brother Unosuke with the revolver and the woman Nui, who has taken his gang hostage, wear lighter-coloured, patterned clothes.