A film's look & themes were inspired by many sources, including John Ford's western film conventions including the canonical taciturn lone h& and the helpless town looking for a defender. Its filming mimics conventional shots around american films including that of a only hero inside the wideshot, facing an enemy or even enemies from either the few feet away whenever the wind kicks higher dust between them. A second crucial influence was a film noir classic The Glass Key from 1942. This film, which starred Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake and is adapted from a novel by Dashiell Hammett is cited by Kurosawa as his inspiration. &, in point of fact, a scenes of the samurai's brutal beating come copied practically shot-for-shot from either that film. A plot of Yojimbo is actually tremendously nearer to an additional Hammett novel, Red Harvest, a fact which has led to numerous uncorroborated rumour that Red Harvest was the really inspiration. In the latter novel, the personal eye, for unresolved, peradventure romantic, motives, determines to uninfected higher the gang-ridden mining town by inciting each gangster against each more. A detective manages to ride out a ensuant waves of execution, saving his have life however about at a numbers of his have personal code of ethics. Around Red Harvest, A Glass Key & Yojimbo, corrupt officials & business community come seen to could have behind & profits from either a rule of the mobster.

Yojimbo was down the road remade as A Fistful of Dollars, a spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood; Youth of the Beast, a modern Japanese yakuza crime film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Shishido Jo; and remade, eventually over againside, in the 20th century "gangster" genre, when Last Man Standing, starring Bruce Willis.

Trivia

The Japanese word yojimbo can be translated into English as bodyguard, & in the U.s. film The Bodyguard Kevin Costner's character takes Whitney Houston's to see Yojimbo. around the film the hero, beaten, disarmed & left for dead, recovers in the little hut in which he practices applying the throwing knife by pinning a fluttering leaf. Around actuality the leaf began retired pinned, a knife was yanked away by a wire & the leaf flew away within a breeze. A film was so reversed eventually. the knife-throw is utilized down a road to disable one of the mobster, world health organization has a Colt 45 side arm in which everyone else has lone blade. This corresponds to the "iron plate" trick listed by Clint Eastwood's character inside A Fistful of Dollars when he returns when existence beaten. An anime series produced by Kurosawa Productions in 2001 entitled Kaze no Yojimbo (literally Bodyguard of the Wind) retold the story of the original film by setting it in the modern era. Numbers of of the characters & cases within the series come correspondent to characters & cases in Yojimbo, however extra subplots & characters were added sequentially to sustain it as a twenty-25 episode TV series & to distinguish itself from either Akira Kurosawa's film.

The 1962 film Sanjuro is often said to become the sequel to Yojimbo. These are too directed by Kurosawa & stars Mifune. A protaganists of each films come seedy, misanthropical samurai operating in the 19th century. These are never explicitly stated that it is a equivalent character, however it seem monovular to numerous observers.

The 1970 film Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo also features Mifune as a similar character. These are one of a series of pic featuring the unsighted fencer Zatoichi.

Ogami Itto character from a popular manga (then manufactured into sextuplet feature motion-picture show) Lone Wolf and Cub is heavily influenced by Toshiro Mifune portrayal of Yojimbo, the looks & scruffines is all but monovular.

Many of the actors that appeared around Yojimbo worked by having Kurosawa prior to & when, especially Takashi Shimura (who appeared around Seven Samurai and Ikiru) and Tatsuya Nakadai (who later on became Kurosawa's main leading actor when the fall retired by using Toshiro Mifune).

Yojimbo created the recently nature and severity of onscreen antihero in which the hero is seen when begrime & lacking manners instead of the average fresh-cut hero.

Some say Yojimbo is according to an actual legendary samurai known as Miyamoto Musashi, known for being the mobile samurai.