Movie – Yojimbo (1961)

Yojimbo from writer/director Akira Kurosawa has been remade twice – the first time as a spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood (1964’s A Fistful of Dollars) and the second time as a Prohibition era action film starring Bruce Willis (1996’s Last Man Standing).  Those two films show the universal nature of the story by seamlessly shifting the setting from feudal Japan to the old American West to 1930s small town America.  The fact that one version was an out and out western shows once again how Kurosawa’s films were often influenced by American westerns, especially the films of John Ford.  I consider Yojimbo to be the best version of the three movies, although Eastwood’s is certainly the best known.

Movie – The Sundowners (1960)

The Sundowners is based on the 1952 Jon Cleary novel of the same name.  There is also a 1950 American film of the same title, but it has nothing to do with either the novel or the 1960 film.  The story is set in the Australian outback in the 1920s.  The Carmody family are sheep drovers and they live in what is, for all intents and purposes, a covered wagon.  Change the sheep to cattle, and the setting to the American west in the 1800s and you’d have an instantly recognizable western.  Director Fred Zinneman had previously done High Noon (1953) and Oklahoma! (1955), so he knew his way around the look and feel of the old west.

Movie – The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008)

When is a western not a western?  When it’s an “eastern”.  Take all the standard western story points, and even horses, guns, and wide open spaces, and transplant them to Manchuria (northeastern China) in the late 1930s.  For those who don’t know their world history the Japanese had invaded the region in 1931 and set up a collaborationist government there.  The result is that many people operated outside the law, including the Koreans whose country was to the southeast of Manchuria.  This means that the wide open spaces of Manchuria were literally the “wild west” for Koreans in the late 1930s.

Movie – Star Wars (1977)

Science fiction films are sometimes referred to as “space operas”, not unlike westerns sometimes being called “horse operas”.  The reason is that there are often similarities in the kind of stories being told; it’s only the setting that is different.  I wrote in the parent post for this category, “Consider the following story: farm boy from the boondocks meets an old gunslinger who shows him the ropes.  After riding into town where all the bad guys and action are they join up with a disreputable criminal with a heart of gold and later a fancy woman out of her element.  Farm boy wants to get revenge on the man who killed his father.  And that man is the former protégé of the old gunslinger who was once very close to him until the protégé betrayed him.  If that’s not a western, I don’t know what is.  If you haven’t figured it out already, I just described Star Wars.”

Movie – Tampopo (1985)

Tampopo is a Japanese film that is clearly rooted in the American Western film genre.  It is set in contemporary Japan, but all of the basic story points are pure classic western.  A mysterious stranger rides into town, helps save a widow and her son, fights the bad guys, and rides off into the sunset.  While it is interesting to see the genre reinterpreted this way, the most fun comes from the comedic aspects of the film itself.

Westerns That Are Not Set In The West

“Mos Eisley spaceport: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.  We must be cautious.” – Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars

Think of all the different kinds of movie genres: drama, comedy, horror, romantic comedy, musical, thriller, action, science fiction, fantasy, etc.  What do these genre names have in common?  They all describe the content of what is in the movie.  And that content can occur in any possible setting or time period.

At first glance, the one exception to this is the Western genre.  Instead of describing what is in it, it describes where and when it is set.  Say “western” and people picture the American West, Monument Valley, desert, cacti, mid 1800s technology, etc.  It’s the only major movie genre that is like that.  (No, “Foreign” doesn’t count since that describes the language being spoken in the film, not where it is set.  Watch The Wedding Banquet sometime.  And some people miss the fact that a movie set in outer space does not have to be science fiction.  It was sad how often I saw Gravity described as “sci-fi”.  It’s a drama set in contemporary near Earth orbit.  And while we’re at it, science fiction doesn’t have to be set in the future.)

But at second glance, is “western” really describing only the setting?  I’m sure it started out that way, but over the decades it has also come to describe the kind of story you can expect almost as much as when you hear “horror” or “romantic comedy”.  When hearing the term “western” some people certainly are picturing desert, but others are picturing tales of good guys vs. bad guys, revenge on someone who has hurt a family member, gunslingers, desolation, a stranger riding into town and helping a widow save her land, etc.

And there are films with the classic western setting that have nothing to do with any of the classic western stories and themes.  Take From Noon to Three (1976).  It certainly starts like you would expect, but it goes in a whole other direction that people probably are not expecting when they think of a western.  And that doesn’t hold a candle to Dead Man (1995) when it comes to a classic western setting presenting a story far removed from that of the classic western film.

Consider the following story: farm boy from the boondocks meets an old gunslinger who shows him the ropes.  After riding into town where all the bad guys and action are they join up with a disreputable criminal with a heart of gold and later a fancy woman out of her element.  Farm boy wants to get revenge on the man who killed his father.  And that man is the former protégé of the old gunslinger who was once very close to him until the protégé betrayed him.  If that’s not a western, I don’t know what is.  If you haven’t figured it out already, I just described Star Wars.

Aside from science fiction, the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa were certainly influenced by American westerns, to the point that some of them even ended up getting remade as out and out westerns (Seven Samurai = The Magnificent Seven, Yojimbo = A Fistful of Dollars, Sanjuro = For a Few Dollars More, etc.)

And the American West isn’t the only place with lawless wide open spaces.  A film such as The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008) is set in Manchuria – which is both literally and metaphorically the Wild West for the 1930s Koreans that are the main characters in it.  The Sundowners (1960) is set in the Australian outback in the 1920s and features a family living and riding in what might as well be a stagecoach while driving sheep.  Django Unchained (2012) is certainly set in the right time period, but it’s in the American South not the West.  It echoes so much of the classic western, though, that writer/director Quentin Tarantino referred to it as a “Southern”.

All of these films and more are Westerns in everything except name.  These are the kinds of movies I will be recommending in this category.  As I review the films I will come back and add the links for them here.

Tampopo (1985)
Star Wars (1977)
The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008)
The Sundowners (1960)
Yojimbo (1961)

Firefly (posted May 5, 2011)
Serenity (posted May 5, 2011)
Seven Samurai (posted October 7, 2011)
Django Unchained (posted February 4, 2013)

On to the reviews…

Movie – Django Unchained (2012)

I’m not a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s films.  While I’ve liked most every one I’ve seen (2007’s Death Proof being a big exception), I’ve never loved them quite as much as many others have.  It’s understandable then that I went into Django Unchained with interest, but without any real expectations.  It turned out that I liked the film a lot.  It is far more entertaining than it has any right to be.  In fact, this may be heresy to fans of Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill, but I consider Django Unchained to be the best film Tarantino has done to date.

Movie – Seven Samurai (1954)

What can be said about Akira Kurosawa’s film Seven Samurai that has not already been said before?  I stalled over this review for a few days because I knew that a movie that has been the subject of any number of learned papers has likely had every minute of it dissected at some point.  I then remembered that my goal is not to provide movie criticism, but to communicate information to people on why they may want to see a movie I am recommending.  To that end I will say that the best reason for you to see Seven Samurai is, quite simply, that it is the greatest non-English language movie ever made.

Movie – Serenity (2005)

Serenity was a movie Joss Whedon wrote and directed based on his TV show Firefly.  Please see my post on the TV series here.  It was a hugely satisfying movie, not just for fans, but also for people who had never seen the TV show.  One reviewer said that this was the kind of movie that Star Wars fans wished George Lucas was making when he was doing the prequels.  I consider this movie to be the best science fiction film released since The Matrix had come out six years earlier.