Let me just start off by saying that I really liked Yojimbo. That being said, I almost fell asleep during the less exciting moments, but that's probably because I was freshly exposed to what most people would call "gratuitous violence" and "pants-wetting terror". I was also worn down from a good night's drinking, but that's besides the point.

Yojimbo manages to do everything right. We know everything we need to know about the characters within a few minutes of their initial appearances, the pacing is great and doesn't have any scenes that seem tacked on for the hell of it, and, as others have pointed out, Yojimbo is a badass. What I don't agree with, however, is the idea that Yojimbo is a knight swooping in to save the town simply because he wants to help people. Although he is a good guy and always does the right thing, Yojimbo would prefer to do things the fun way.

It doesn't take much of an argument to show that Yojimbo would rather kill time than save the town. Judging by the last scene, he could have easily walked in, killed both gangs, and walked out within the space of 20 minutes, but that's no longer an option after his first plan only just failed by a few minutes. With the inspector, kidnappings, wailing father-son duo, and the guy who only thought of bringing ONE gun back from his travels, Yojimbo pretty much has no choice but to go along with instigating fights between the two gangs. In fact, since the inspector was coming to town anyway, killing half the town's population probably would have made Yojimbo look like a criminal, so this paragraph is pretty much done.

What I liked in particular about Yojimbo was that the entire thing felt like a comedy, which is pretty apparent when the dog with a hand in its mouth cues a lighthearted jingle. As I mentioned earlier, every character displays the entirety of their persona within their first 5 minutes of screen time, which is probably because nothing gets more complicated than just having good guys on one side and bad guys on the other. It even got to the point where you could tell the Seibei gang would probably fall first just because it didn't have as many wacky characters as Ushitora's crew. There was the giant with a hammer, the unibrow and bucktooth guy, the aforementioned cheap gunslinger, and the actual boss. If you were counting you'll notice that half of those characters are too ridiculous to be anything but comic relief, one serves as the only person who is an actual threat to Yojimbo, and one is just there as a plot point. 

I believe it was John who told us to look for elements of cowardice and bravery in this film, which I only remembered after reading the blurb from Krystal's entry. At first I thought it would be another "bravery is just facing your fears" afterschool special, but then I realized that's not right at all. At key points in the film, cowardice is what saves the hero and his friends while bravery is what get them in trouble. Take the scene where the old man and casket maker are smuggling Yojimbo out of town. Had the casket maker decided not to run away from the fight going on a full 200 feet away, it's very likely that unibrow or someone would have seen them stepping out, checked the casket, and killed all three. On the other hand, because the crybaby husband was so brave and adamant about bringing Yojimbo a gibbering thank you note, gunslinger figured out the entire plot and the giant got some extra screen time. Of course there are still the elements of "joining a gang and killing doesn't make you brave" and "not being a fighter doesn't make you a coward", but at least they're balanced out.

I actually enjoyed the fact that all of the fights were done without music, were over in about 20 seconds, and had a minimal amount of blood. Not only did this amplify how they were all hilariously one-sided, but also kept the fight scenes from rising above everything else, which is the opposite of what Tarantino decided to do with Kill Bill. It also drives home the fact that Yojimbo is a master swordsman who knows exactly how much effort it takes to kill someone versus the thugs he's fighting, who prefer to slash people to the ground then throw in another 10 strokes for good measure, or just shoot them.

There's a great deal of good reasons why so many other movies have decided to rip off Kurosawa's work. Yojimbo is full of them.