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Yojimbo is one of Kurosawa's most playful films with one of Mifune's wittiest performances as the ronin with no name. He spends most of the movie, when he's not using his katana, walking around with his arms inside his kimono as if he didn't have any. Yeah, just like Clint and his serape. If you've seen A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo, you know how closely the former follows the latter. The comparison even extends to the anachronistic (for the time) sounds of their musical scores. But the plot is really the key, and Kurosawa says he was inspired by the Alan Ladd film noir The Glass Key, which was based on a Dashiell Hammett novel. Kurosawa must've really liked Hammett since parts of Yojimbo also come from his first novel, Red Harvest.
High and Low is Kurosawa's adaptation of one of Ed McBain's "87th Precinct" novels. Almost none of the plot or movie turns out the way one would think. Toshiro Mifune is excellent playing a businessman with multiple dilemmas and Tatsuya Nakadai [again] equals him playing the chief detective investigating the central crime and its aftermath. Kurosawa shows he's as adept at modern crime films (although this certainly isn't his first) as he is at his period adventure/dramas.
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