Red Sun
A samurai, and two cowboys meet in Arizona. Bushido koans are thrown around, but in the end the gun is mightier than the sword. What matters is that the quest is fulfilled, by the not so renegade protagonist.
All that matters is that Charles Bronson, Alain Delon and Toshirō Mifune play their respective stereotypes: the noir protagonist, the backstabbing wiseguy, and the honourable samurai (not a ronin, he work for the state).
The plot is simple: two cowboys and their buddies hijack the train where the Japanese Ambassador travels. The Yankee soldiers are worse than useless. Harmonica just wants the money, but Le Samouraï takes their honour: the ceremonial sword, and the life of one of the bodyguards. But the Frenchman wants it all, and betrays old Harmonica.
Now Yojimbo and Harmonica travel the west searching for the sword. Of course Harmonica says he just wants the cash, but deep down he wants to help his newfound buddy.
Besides killing hundreds of bandits (mostly Chicanos) and Comanches, our duo also fights one another several times. Another bonding subject is plain old prostitutes, the favourite past time of all Cowboys.
Ultimately, the bonds of camaraderie are stronger than a quarter million dollars, which is an absurd amount of 1860 dollars. For reference, the Louisiana Purchase was just 100 times more, 60 years before.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.