![]() Harsh, hostile, wide-open landscape is a “character” : Sanjuro travels through desolate country to a tiny frontier town in feudal Japan. What are the Conventions and Obligatory Scenes of the Western story? Conventions – Leslie Action rose to the top for me: Action / Duel / Machiavellian 2. Of the three subgenres that make up Western, one often will rise to the top (like Thriller). Uncompromising individual sacrifices for good of all – This could be a case of me bringing my own inner genre to the table (or what I aspire my inner genre to be), but this is the way I pictured Sanjuro: a moral character playing on the subtext. Yojimbo: Western-Vengeance – a stranger comes to town to right a wrong Subgenres: Classic, Vengeance, Transition, Professional A subtextual Jesus/savior myth lies underneath the gunfighting.Ĭore Emotion – Freedom (but also intrigue and excitement) The western story is a combination of crime/society/action in which the individual is both condemned and exalted by society. Want to learn more about the Editor’s Six Core Questions? Check out our Story Grid 101 episode. Sanjuro frees the tavern-keeper, then walks away from the town he has liberated, saying, “See you around.” The Editor’s Six Core Questions As Sanjuro surveys the damage, the silk merchant (who is Seibei’s only remaining ally) kills the sake brewer (who is Ushitora’s only remaining ally). He spares only one terrified young man that’s the farmer’s son he encountered on his way into the town at the beginning of the story. ![]() Sanjuro then kills Ushitora and all his men, including the gun-toting brother. Ushitora eventually nabs the tavern keeper for his role in the samurai’s escape, so once recovered, Sanjuro returns to free his ally. As he leaves, he witnesses the brutal end to Seibei and his gang. With the tavern keeper’s help, Sanjuro manages to escape the town. Unosuke discovers Sanjuro’s double cross, and has him severely beaten and imprisoned. The gang war reaches a peak when Ushitora’s men burn down the silk-merchant’s warehouse in retaliation for the loss of the woman, and Seibei’s men destroy the sake brewery in retaliation for the fire. He gives them money and tells them to leave town, then convinces Ushitora that it was Seibei’s men who took her. When Sanjuro learns that the woman is actually the wife of a farmer he discovers where she’s being held, kills the guards and reunites her with her family. The prisoners are exchanged and the woman is borne away in front of her crying child. Ushitora kidnaps Seibei’s son and Seibei counters by kidnaping Ushitora’s woman. In a complicated series of moves tensions between the gangs escalate. Meanwhile, Ushitora’s youngest brother, the handsome and ruthless Unosuke, comes back to town and he’s got a gun the only gang member to have one. This official law-and-order presence shuts down all gang activity for days, and costs the gang leaders a fortune in bribes. Before the two gangs can come to blows in the street, a government investigator from the capital arrives, forcing both sides to make a bloodless retreat. This way, they won’t have to pay him anything.Īccordingly, Sanjuro leads Seibei’s men into attack formation with the other gang, but then quits. But in a conspiratorial conversation that Sanjuro overhears, Seibei’s strong, greedy wife orders their son to kill Sanjuro as soon as the raid is done. ![]() Seibei now thinks the time is right to fight the stronger gang. ![]() After hearing the tavern-keeper’s story, Sanjuro decides to stay, saying he thinks the town would be better off with both sides dead.īy effortlessly killing three members of the stronger Ushitora gang, he convinces the weaker Seibei to hire him as a bodyguard. Seibei, a weak man with a strong wife, owns the silk merchant’s allegiance, and Ushitora has bought the sake brewer’s allegiance. The town is under violent control by two rival gangs, who are each recruiting criminals from the countryside, and have each co-opted a wealthy town leader. The town’s tavern keeper advises Sanjuro to leave. He sees the son of an elderly farm couple run off to join the exciting life of gangs and gambling in a nearby town, and decides to investigate. In 1860 a samurai, named Sanjuro, wanders through a desolate Japanese countryside. Here’s a synopsis adapted from Wikipedia. Ĭlick here to download our Foolscap Global Story Grid. It’s East meets Western this week as the Roundtable team crosses the Pacific and the decades to look at Akira Kurosawa’s 1960 samurai classic, Yojimbo. Download the Math of Storytelling Infographic
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