Yojimbo (1961)
Being into spaghetti westerns and Leone for many years, I have always known that the genre owes a lot to Kurosawa and especially Yojimbo. This is my third Kurosawa film (Rashamon and Ran being the other two), and this really tells me I need to look more into samurai movies with how they deal and explore many of the same themes as westerns.
The similarities with A Fistfull of Dollars was most apparent in the overall style and the stoic no-name protagonist. It was a bit hard for me to focus on Yojimbo on its own merit and less on all its influences I could pinpoint. Mostly in the beginning, because its humor is very much its own thing (and quite hilarious too) and Sanjuro is a very different character to Eastwoods almost mute one.
I was not completely engaged though and felt the movie dragged a bit in parts. Both Ran and Rashamon had more depth whereas I mostly liked Yojimbo for its humor and its massive influences to other films I love.
Rating: 3.5