CINEDOOM: Yojimbo

Blackhorse Lowe's curated film series, CINEDOOM, returns on 35mm to Circle Cinema presented with Tulsa Artist Fellowship. The series features two classic features that provide distinct narrative responses to societal greed and consumerism through artful storytelling, Japan's end-of-the-samurai era, "Yojimbo," by cinema master Akira Kurosawa in August and the American subculture cult film "Repo Man" by Alex Cox in October.

YOJIMBO (1961, 110m, B&W, Japan) Directed and Edited by Akira Kurosawa. Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa and Ryûzô Kikushima. Cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa. Music by Masaru Satō. Starring Toshirô Mifune, Eijirō Tōno, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yôko Tsukasa and Isuzu Yamada.

Set in the waning days of the samurai during the 1860s, Akira Kurosawa's visually stunning and darkly comic film serves as his response to a post-war Japanese society, where the rising influences of consumerism and modernity threaten the nation's spirit and culture. The movie stars Toshirō Mifune as Sanjūrō, a wandering ronin-for-hire who stumbles into a divided town controlled by rival criminal gangs. Upon realizing that neither gang is worthy of his allegiance, the cunning mercenary skillfully manipulates both sides in a strategic game of violence. However, as suspicion grows, his orchestrated plan brinks on collapse, leaving him entangled in a precarious web of danger. Kurosawa's adaptation of "Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett is a cinematic expressive marvel, and the film's influence can be seen in subsequent works, including Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars" starring Clint Eastwood. "Yojimbo" remains a pivotal and entertaining masterpiece of global cinema.