THE HIDDEN FORTRESS Movie Review
Kakushi Toride No San Akunin • Three Rascals in the Hidden Fortress • Three Bad Men in the Hidden Fortress
1958 Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa's lighthearted adventure is best known in the West as an inspiration for George Lucas's Star Wars. Lucas translates characters, situations, themes, and even landscapes from feudal Japan to a galaxy far far away, but Kurosawa wasn't working in a vacuum, either. It's easy to see the Hollywood influence on his work.
His two heroes—Tahei (Minoru Chiaki) and Matakishi (Kamatari Fujiwara)—come from a long line of mismatched cinematic comic squabblers such as Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Sylvester and Tweety. (Sergio Leone and Eli Wallach might have found some inspiration for Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in these scheming peasants, too.)
As the film begins, these two guys, whose greed is matched only by their stupidity, have just escaped from a grave-digging detail and are wandering across a sandy landscape as they try to get back home. They're farmers who sold everything they had to seek their fortune in war. Alas, they backed the wrong side, but they have figured out that if they can slip unnoticed into the Hayaka territory, they might then be able to go back to the Akizuki territory without attracting the attention of the Yamano guards. All this is necessary because Lord Yamano has placed a bounty of 10 pieces of gold on the head of Princess Yuki Akizuki (Misa Uehara). Our heroes would turn her in and collect the reward (they'd probably rat out their own mothers for the right price), but by then they've been tossed into the slammer.
They escape in an astonishing slave rebellion, reminiscent of the Odessa steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin. Eventually, that bit of business leads them to Gen. Rokurota Makabe (Toshiro Mifune), last remaining defender of the Princess and guardian of a cleverly disguised fortune in gold. Matakishi and Tahei would happily steal it, but Rokurota keeps them on a tight leash. Further complicating matters are hidden identities, warring armies, a resourceful young woman (Toshiko Higuchi) who's saved from bondage, and a princess who's lippy, bitchy, and sexy.
Just as important as the plot, however, are the rugged landscapes where the action is set. Kurosawa makes his steep mountains and fog-shrouded forests exotic and magical; places where anything might happen. The few interiors are just as impressive, most notably a flooded dungeon and the prison where the guys are held. The two best scenes are a long, almost ritualized duel with lances between Rokurota and his old opponent, Gen. Tadokoro (Susumu Fujita), and the ceremonial fire dance. Along with the escape of the slaves, they are the kind of big, carefully staged scenes that Kurosawa handles so well. But those larger-than-life moments work only because the individual characters are so strongly drawn. As the brief synopsis indicates, these are immediately recognizable transcultural archetypes—scheming peasants, regal princess, valiant warrior—and the film has a strong fairy tale quality.
The Hidden Fortress lacks the emotional power of Seven Samurai and the fast-paced action of Yojimbo, but it's about essentially the same subject—how an individual or small group survives when surrounded by larger warring forces—and it may be the most entertaining of Kurosawa's black-and-white films of that period.
Cast: Toshiro Mifune (Gen. Rokurota Makabe), Misa Uehara (Princess Yukihime), Kamatari Fujiwara (Matakishi), Susumu Fujita (Gen. Hyoe Tadokoro), Eiko Miyoshi (Lady-in-waiting), Takashi Shimura (The old general, Izumi Nagakura), Kichijiro Ueda (Girl-Dealer), Koji Mitsui (Soldier), Minoru Chiaki (Tahei), Toshiko Higuchi (The farmer's daughter), Shiten Ohashi (Samurai); Written by: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni; Cinematography by: Kazuo Yamazaki; Music by: Masaru Sato. Producer: Akira Kurosawa, Masumi Fujimoto. Japanese. Awards: Berlin International Film Festival '59: Best Director (Kurosawa). Running Time: 139 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV, Letterbox.