Kenji Mizoguchi

Yojimbo vs. Ugetsu: Which movie to choose to write a foreign movie review?

Yojimbo: samurai comedy/drama by Akira Kurosawa

Both would certainly be excellent choices.

Ugetsu is in many ways more Japanese of the two, so if it is the “foreign” aspect that you are looking for, that’s probably going to be your choice. There is much in it to marvel about, and certainly a lot to discuss.

Yojimbo, on the other hand, is perhaps more interesting as a “foreign movie”, because you get to consider what in the end is so foreign about it. It is, after all, in many ways the case of a western (that Hollywood archetype) invading an archetypical Japanese film genre. Furthermore, Yojimbo certainly had an influence on the so-called “revisionist” westerns of the 60s and 70s, thus feeding back to Hollywood (and Europe), and having an impact on the realism and violence depicted in westerns.

I would also suspect that Yojimbo has more literature available in English, in case you want to do some background reading. Then again, I’m far more up-to-date with Kurosawa criticism than Mizoguchi stuff (I run a website at akirakurosawa.info), so I might be wrong. And there certainly is stuff on Ugetsu as well.

Whichever you choose, I think you can’t go wrong.

Μiss Οyυ (1951) 1/6