19th century Japan. A lone, scruffy samurai strolls into a provincial town cleft by two rival warring gangs. Realising that both sides are equally bad, he gleefully sets out to trick them into destroying each other. For this widescreen gem Kurosawa borrowed conventions from his beloved Western genre, and later had the favour repaid by Sergio Leone who appropriated the plot of YOJIMBO for FISTFUL OF DOLLARS.