In the twenty-seventh episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher Olson and I welcome back friend of the podcast Joe Belfeuil to discuss Akira Kurosawa’s samurai classic Yojimbo (1961).

In this episode, the conversation focuses on the film’s position as a transnational and transcultural pop culture text that acts as a link in a chain connecting different cultures, nations and time periods. Inspired by American pop culture, the film would go on to inspire Italian, Japanese and American pop culture, showing how truly globalized the world became after World War II. Additionally, the discussion gets a tad heated when it delves into the consideration of Kurosawa as a fan and Yojimbo as fan fiction.

Many thanks goes out to production assistant, Jean-Michel Berthiaume, for helping produce this episode.

As always, you are encouraged to become a part of this conversation by visiting any of the podcast’s social media sites. You can also talk with Christopher Olson on Twitter (@chrstphrolson) and at his academic blog seemsobvioustome.wordpress.com. And you can talk to me on Twitter (@mediaoracle).