Part of Akira Kurosawa: A Retrospective
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in HIGH AND LOW, Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential domestic drama and police procedural (see also: Spike Lee’s 2025 “remake” HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, opening Aug 15). Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society.
Programmers Note: On Sun, Aug 17, you can catch back-to-back screenings of HIGH AND LOW (11:50am, 5:30pm) and HIGHEST 2 LOWEST (2:45pm, 8:25pm) in our 1925 Hall. Tickets sold separately.
“One of the best detective thrillers ever filmed…. A sizzling, artistic crackerjack and a model of its genre, pegged on a harassed man's moral decision, laced with firm characterizations and tingling detail and finally attaining an incredibly colorful crescendo of microscopic police sleuthing…. Mr. Kurosawa has composed a remarkable movie mosaic, both spine-tingling and compassionate.” —A.O. Scott, New York Times (Nov 27, 1963) “Illuminates its world with a wholeness and complexity you rarely see in film. As Akira Kurosawa weaves together character study, social commentary and police procedure, he combines what might have been a whole series of movies for another, lesser director…. A movie where every scene, every sequence, every shot are alive with confidence in the medium.” —Paul Attanasio, Washington Post “Kurosawa’s shrewd use of American source material comes three years after John Sturges’ THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, based on his own classic SEVEN SAMURAI; Kurosawa here gives us two Japanese boys playing at cowboys, with six-shooters and Winchesters, the father of one approving of their winner-takes-all violent gunplay. It’s a cynical story from the big city that might have interested Billy Wilder.” —Peter Bradshaw, Guardian (UK)
