Kakushi Toride no San-Akunin
The Hidden Fortress, 1958
directed by
Akira Kurosawa
This is one of my, admittedly many, favorites. A rattling good story, very well told. Much comedy of the farcical type, but also quite sophisticated. The most interesting female in all of Kurosawa's work; at least, that's what I think. Everybody will tell you this is what Star Wars is based on. Yeah, but skip Star Wars; this one is much better. (I saw only the last Star Wars, naturally based on a different plot, and it bored the hell out of me. You'd hardly recognize it anyway, the sets are much different to start with.)
Actually, the story when you tell it in a few lines sounds like a bunch of clichés. So why bother? This was Kurosawa's last film for Toho, they say, but I can't really agree. Technically, later films were produced by Kurosawa Productions, sure; that's just like, in the same period, Zanuck Productions for 20th Century Fox — what's the big deal?
The big deal is, rather, this is Kurosawa's first CinemaScope film and he never looked back till Dodesukaden. You might well wonder what Seven Samurai would have looked like, had it been done in wide-screen. Same thing for B/W: Kurosawa kept making color movies until 1970, with that same Dodesukaden. Even Billy Wilder and Otto Preminger had given that up long since by then (only Pim de la Parra had not; but then, he's color blind. So maybe were Wilder and Preminger?) My point is, fabulous as all those earlier movies look in B/W, can you not feel sorry they weren't made in color when you look at them now, having seen his later work? You think this is nonsense, huh? Consider: so a Rembrandt carbon sketch for his Night Watch looks fabulous — until you see the oil painting. But in one way you're right: this sort of wondering will get you nowhere.
Anyway, no hifalutin words. This movie is meant to be enjoyed, so enjoy it. Already.
Produced by Toho
Japan 1958
139 minutes, B/W, TohoScope
| Credits: |
Cast: |
||
| producer screenplay photographed art director lighting sound recording music by |
Masumi Fujimoto Akira Kurosawa Ahinobe Hashimoto Ryuzo Kikushima Hideo Oguni Akira Kurosawa Kazuo Yamasaki Ichiro Onohara Yoshiro Muraki Kohei Ezaki Fumio Yanoguchi Masaru Sato |
General Rokurota Makabe The Princess Yukihime General Izumi Nagakura General Hyoe Tadokoro Lady-In-Waiting Tahei Matakishi Girl Slaver Soldier |
Toshiro Mifune Misa Uehara Takashi Shimura Susumu Fujita Eiko Miyoshi Minoru Chiaki Kamatari Fujiwara Toshiko Higuchi Kichijiro Ueda Koji Mitsui |
| The Hidden Fortress |
| One of the main inspirations for "Star Wars," this Kurosawa epic is set in feudal Japan, where wily general Toshiro Mifune must escort a deposed princess and her clan's fortune through enemy territory, with some unwilling help from two bungling thieves. |
| TohoScope, Perspecta stereophonic sound. |
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