The western enshrines America’s mythic indulgence into ideas of expansionism and boundless potential. The genre is rooted in the legend of America’s Wild West from the late 19th century, a time in which the Frontier symbolized freedom and opportunity for the people. The American people retained this attachment to the western myth, ultimately leading to a nostalgia that pervaded art forms such as literature and film.

There is no doubt as to the magnificence of this show, but The Queen’s Gambit does have its shortcomings—problems that I have rarely seen acknowledged by film critics or viewers alike.

Kurosawa focuses on the boundary between the samurai and the farmers, uniting them in the fight against the bandits to show that social class lines can be broken when people come together for a common goal.