{"id":1035,"date":"2015-11-20T17:38:37","date_gmt":"2015-11-21T01:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zigzorg.com\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2015-11-20T18:45:45","modified_gmt":"2015-11-21T02:45:45","slug":"yojimbo-vs-a-fistful-of-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zigzorg.com\/?p=1035","title":{"rendered":"Yojimbo vs A Fistful of Dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past weekend, I rented Yojimbo<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1961, dir.\/co-writer Akira Kurosawa) and A Fistful of Dollars<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1964, dir. Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood). They were recommended by my\u00a0student advisor at RRFC (a mentorship program) to help develop a story I want to write. It\u00a0only helped inform me of\u00a0a direction I don’t want to take. The rest of this article is more of a diary for me, so feel free to skip it, but it does cover some similarities and differences between the films and explains why I\u00a0fell asleep to both.<\/p>\n

My story called for someone to create a hit list that turns a\u00a0high school’s student body against each other\u00a0(more like McCarthyism<\/a>, black lists, witch hunts, or The Twilight Zone<\/em> episode\u00a0The Monsters are Due on Maple Street<\/a><\/em>). But my mentor thought watching these two films about an outsider turning two rival gangs on each other would be helpful. Little did I know that they’re the exact same story!<\/p>\n

Made only 3 years apart on two different continents (Japan, then Europe) the first 15 minutes makes it obvious that Sergio Leone had ripped off the Kurosawa film in basic premise and even dialogue. So much so that Kurosawa sued Leone and they settled out of court.<\/p>\n

I watched the latter first since I had seen\u00a0The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1966, dir. Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood)\u00a0a few months earlier, and I really enjoyed it for its characters, plot (and twists), and music. Furthermore, I had seen Seven Samurai<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(1954, dir.\/co-writer Akira Kurosawa)\u00a0a decade ago, because Star Wars<\/em>, and I don’t remember it all but I do remember being bored and forgetting about it.<\/p>\n

In the\u00a0opening of A Fistful of Dollars<\/em>, Clint Eastwood (a hired gun) walks into town see some family fighting, then is harassed by some gang. Then he enters a tavern where the owner feeds him despite knowing the stranger doesn’t have money. The owner then warns the stranger to leave after eating, informing the stranger about the two rival gangs and their back story. He also tells the stranger that the only venture that’s profitable is\u00a0casket maker for all the dead bodies. The stranger decides to stay, informing the owner that there is much money to be made for him. He then heads outside, tells the coffin maker to make 3 coffins, picks a fight with the gang that harassed him, \u00a0kills 4\u00a0of\u00a0them, then heads to the rival gang to be hired, but while walking past the coffin\u00a0maker tells him, “My bad, better make that four.”<\/p>\n

In Yojimbo,\u00a0a Samurai (a hired warrior)\u00a0walks into town, sees some family fighting, then is harassed by some gang. Then he enters a restaurant\u00a0where the owner feeds him despite knowing the stranger doesn’t have money. The owner then warns the stranger to leave after eating, informing the stranger about the two rival gangs and their back story. He also tells the stranger that the only venture that’s profitable is coffin\u00a0maker for all the dead bodies.\u00a0The stranger decides to stay, informing the owner that he makes money from killing people\u00a0and after he kills all the gangs, the town can start fresh. He then heads outside, picks a fight with the gang that harassed him, kills 3 of their members, then heads to the rival gang to be hired, but while walking he passes\u00a0the casket maker and tells him to make 2 coffins, make that 3.<\/p>\n

There are differences\u00a0between the two, with the remake being a little bit more complicated and intricate to the Western setting as opposed to the Japanese setting. But overall, the same story.<\/p>\n

This video here demonstrates some similarities, completely failing to note how the tavern scene was beat-for-beat the same, with slightly different words.<\/p>\n