The phenomenon of hero and reflection of the hero's journey in Akira Kurosawa cinema: Yojimbo and Sanjuro examples

The main purpose of this research is to examine hero phenomenon and which purpose is used and how for the hero's journey in terms of Akira Kurosawa movies. Accordingly Yojimbo and Sanjuro movies of director have been examined. Among this research it is detected that Sanjuro who is the hero of each movie can be defined as anti hero since he has a hero archetype which is very common for myths and tales as part of hero phenomenon. However, in second movie, it is seen that the characteristics of hero started to change and he especially tried to get rid of his anti hero side. Therefore, the movies have been resolved among the hero's journey model of Christopher Vogler. Yojimbo movie fits well to this model, and even with stylistic differences Sanjuro movie fits to this model too. Besides it is an important fact that in Sanjuro movie, alongside the structure of the movie, the evolution of hero had happened on this model.