Generations have been introduced to the no-named stranger who is quick to kill or maim and even quicker with a quip through the Clint Eastwood Sergio Leone Western “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964), the Bruce Willis/Walter Hill Depression Era Western “Last Man Standing” of 1996 or other variations on that theme.

But even the “original” version of “Let’s you and them fight” is a Western with samurai, and no sagebrush. “Yojimbo.” one of Kurosawa’s greatest collaborations with his muse, Toshirô Mifune, has brothels and sake breweries instead of saloons, silkworm farming instead of cattle ranching and swordfighting instead of shootouts.

Theres a body count, and laughs to go along with it — wisecracks to a coffin builder/undertaker, geishas and bungling bosses and their hapless minions. The musical score has jaunty Western touches in the orchestration and arrangment.

And as it’s set @ 1860, a pistol is introduced and the undoing of the samurai era and code are foretold as the tale is tied to the “end of an era” movies Hollywood has put on horseback since the beginning of cinema.

Action comedies have been around since Keystone Studios unleashed mayhem and its famed Keystone Cops on the (silent) moviegoing public. But the genre didn’t really find its template until Hitchcock’s 1959 classic, “North by Northwest.”

Kurosawa raised the stakes, the violence and the body count and established many of the tropes of these films with his tale of a Rōnin who wanders into a divided town and figures out how to manipulate the combatants for bloody fun and profit.

Our rogue warrior (Mifune) wanders into the (black and white) wilderness frame and decides where to go next by tossing a stick in the air at a crossroads. That’s how he winds up in a frightened town where a brothel owner, Seibe (Seizaburô Kawazu) is at war with a former lieutenant, Ushitora (Kyû Sazanka).

The men have armed goons to carry out their fight for control. Everybody else has to live with the consequences of this mayhem and ongoing murderous threat.

That’s what our stranger learns from the “old man” tavern keeper (Eijirô Tôno) who is resigned to struggle on here, and to serve as the deliverer of much of the narrative’s exposition. He’s the one who eventually coaxes a name out of our swordighter– Sanjuro.

Crooked mayor to sake brewer, everybody’s entangled in this fight, even those who refuse to take sides. Only the cooper/woodworker/coffin maker (Atsushi Watanabe) sees profit in all this conflict.

One and all can tell from our Rōnin‘s confident and belligerent stride that he’s “tough.” So it takes no time at all for one and then both of the factions to try and hire him as a “bodyguard,” aka “yōjinbō.” But a smart samurai sees all the angles, and not just the ones he knows from swordfighting. There’s more money to be made by convincing one and then the other boss that he’ll sign on to their gang.

Brawls, killings and kidnappings ensue, threats and hostages are exchanged, schemes are hatched and who will get the better of whom is very much in doubt.

One gangster has a violent, hulking monobrowed goof of a son (Daisuke Katô). One gang has a “giant” (the Lurch-sized Tsunagorô Rashômon). And only one gang can up the ante when a sadistic son (Tatsuya Nakadai) shows up, a preening punk with a pistol — a revolver he’s quick to set off to end any fight or argument.

In this maelstrom, who will live, who will die and who will double cross whom are the burning questions this much-copied plot will answer. We hope.

Kurosawa didn’t invent the “stranger capable of violence and violent manipulations” trope. Detective novelist Dashiell Hammett inspired “Yojimbo” with his 1929 novel “Red Harvest.” But in making his variation on a theme by Hammett, Kurosawa and “Yojimbo” came close to perfecting the formula for action comedies where the emphasis in on the violence.

“Two coffins,” our samurai mutters to the cooper, anticipating how many gangsters aren’t going to survive the latest tussle. “Maybe three,” he muses, reconsidering — a line echoed in “Fistful of Dollars” and through the decades in other imitations.

The character became the iconic role in Mifune’s storied career. He’d aged out of the brash young men of his earliest films, and the over-reactions of “Rashomon” and “Seven Samurai” He carries himself here with a sandaled and sword-swinging swagger, his growl settling on lines that were Bogart-hardboiled, only delivered in Japanese.

“I get paid for killing, and this town is full of people who deserve to die.”

Renewing my acquaintance with this classic, I focused on the pre-noon light of most of the outdoor scenes, save for a showdown at high noon — given away as timed perfectly thanks to the limited shadaows. Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa’s compositions — augmented with smoke and shadows — are perfect without being showy, stark and succint.

Composer Masaru Satô’s score shifts from Japanese minimalist to sweeping Western orchestral with horns and even a hint of twanginess, suggestion Leone wasn’t the only one “borrowing” from “Yojimbo” on “Fistfull of Dollars.” Composer Ennio Morricone must have taken notes at a screening of Kurosawa’s classic before tackling his own take on “modern” Western music.

The 65 years since it came out have done nothing but burnish the reputation of “Yojimbo,” an action comedy that set the tone and which grew in importance thanks to its many almost-as-classic imitations, acknowledged and unacknowledged.

And decades of prior work and films to follow did nothing to diminish the myth of Mifune, the scowling stranger with a sword to swing, body parts to lop off and a cool detachment that made him the Japanese Eastwood and McQueen, all rolled into one.

Rating: unrated, violence, some profanity, sex workers

Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Eijirô Tôno, Kyû Sazanka, Seizaburô Kawazu, Yôko Tsukasa,Tsunagorô Rashômon and Daisuke Katô

Credits: Directed by Akira Kurosawa, scripted by Ryūzō Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Oguni. A Toho/Criterion release on Tubi, other streamers

Running time: 1:50