HIDDEN FORTRESS
A film bu Akira Kurosawa
1958/ Jpan/ 39 minutes
27th March /5.45pm / Perks Mini
Theater
The Hidden
Fortress is a comedy-action epic. It
playfully treats themes that Kurosawa could turn into the grimmest of
anatomizations of human nature. Toshiro Mifune is at the fore, but the real
focus of the story is on a pair of escaped thieves who, despite their initial
bickerings, soon become friends of an almost co-dependent nature. They are
captured, but manage to escape in a prisoner riot and go hide in the mountains.
While there, they come across two unexpected surprise - gold.
There are
many laugh out loud moments in Hidden Fortress, thanks to the dimwitted pair's
antics and the use of Mifune's blustering bravado to intimidate and annoy
them.In addition, the film also bears some of Kurosawa's finest action
sequences since Yojimbo, which include Mifune chasing down two escaping enemies
on horseback with a two-handed grip katana smackdown at the end of the ride,
and a protracted but excellent spear Deul between Rokurota and a general of the
opposing army.
The Hidden
Fortress was cited by George Lucas as the basis of Star Wars—chiefly in the way
the story unfolds through the eyes of two comic characters. Kurosawa has
differentiated The Hidden Fortress from nearly every similar feudal era
Japanese epic ever committed to the screen. THE HIDDEN FORTRESS should leave
you with a smile on your face and almost wishing it would keep going.
Akira Kurosawa
Akira
Kurosawa was the youngest of seven children, born in Tokyo on 23 March 1910. A
talented painter, he enrolled in an art school that emphasized Western styles.
Around this time he also joined an artists' group with a great enthusiasm for
nineteenth-century Russian literature, with Dostoevsky a particular favourite.
Another influence was Heigo, one of his brothers, who loved film and worked as
a benshi, a film narrator/commentator for foreign silent films. His suicide
deeply affected the director's sensibilities.
In 1930 he
responded to a newspaper advertisement for assistant directors at a film studio
and began assisting Kajiro Yamamoto, who liked the fact he knew 'a lot about
things other than movies'. Within five years he was writing scripts and
directing whole sequences for Yamamoto films. In 1943 he made his debut as a
director with Judo Saga (Sanshiro Sugata), with a magnificent martial-arts
sequence.
His early
films were produced during the Second World War, so had to comply to themes
prescribed by official state propaganda policy. It was Drunken Angel which was
Kurosawa's first personally expressive work, made in 1948 and featuring Toshiro
Mifune who became Kurosawa's favourite leading man.
For those who
discover Kurosawa, they will find a master technician and stylist, with a deep
humanism and compassion for his characters and an awe of the enormity of
nature. He awakened the West to Japanese cinema with Rashomon, which won the
top prize in the Venice Film Festival of 1951, and also a special Oscar for
best foreign film. A golden period followed, with the West enthralled by his
work. Seven Samurai, Yojimbo etc.
A true
auteur, he supervised the editing of nearly all his films and wrote or
collaborated on the scripts of most. His memoirs were published in 1982, titled
Something like an Autobiography. In 1989 he won an Oscar for Lifetime
Achievement. Kurosawa died in 1998.
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