Kind of funny how stories can inspire adaptations that inspire adaptations.
For example, let's take the 1929 novel Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. In this book, an anonymous detective is brought in by the local oligarch to help bring a town back under the rich guy's thumb, after the various factions that used to do the guy's dirty work (the crooked cops, the strikebreakers etc.) all split off to form their own gangs. The detective intends to also get his employer arrested but ultimately unsuccessful on that front.
In 1961, Akira Kurosawa loosely adapted Red Harvest for his film Yojimbo. In this movie, the action was shifted from a early 20th century industrial town to a town in feudal Japan beset with various criminal gangs. The lead is a Samurai from outside the town who decides to effectively get rid of the gangs for his own amusement.
In 1964, Italian film maker Sergio Leone remade Yojimbo (originally without authorisation) as the Spaghetti Western (a genre of Westerns made by Italian directors in Spain with occasional American actor) A Fistful of Dollars. For this film the action shifts back Stateside, to a town on the American/Mexican border beset by rival American and Mexican gangs. The protagonist is The Man With No Name (some call him Joe just for convenience) who uses the chaos in the town to destroy both gangs for fun and profit.
And finally, in 1996 the action film Last Man Standing once again remade Yojimbo (supposedly with permission this time, but in action lifts a lot from A Fistful of Dollars) which takes the action to a town on the American/Mexican border during the 1920s, where two rival Italian and Irish gangs fight for control due to the town's location for shipping across booze into the country from Mexico (it being during the Prohibition and all). The protagonist here is "John Smith", a wandering murderer-for-hire who gets stuck in the town when a Texas ranger basically blackmails him into getting rid of one or both of the gangs.
So yeah, you have an early twentieth century pulp novel inspiring an iconic Japanese samurai movie which in turn inspires a classic western and then morphs into something approximating the original story in a mostly okay Bruce Willis action film.
dailybridgerton
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