“I know how much this money means to you, but a human life means more.”
When considering the greatest directors of all time, there is one name that stands out from the rest, and that is Akira Kurosawa. He got his start making propaganda films for imperial Japan in World War II, such as 1943’s “Sanshirō Sugata,” but during the American occupation, he was finally free to make the types of films he truly wanted to.
In 1950, his film “Rashōmon” was submitted to the prestigious Venice Film Festival, where it became the first Japanese film to win the top prize of the Golden Lion, later also winning one of the first Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. He followed this up with 1952’s “Ikiru” and 1954’s “Seven Samurai,” two of the single greatest films of all time. But in 1963, he would adapt the novel “King’s Ransom” by Evan Hunter into a feature film, and the result was another cinematic masterpiece.
The plot follows Kingo Gondo (portrayed by the legendary Toshirō Mifune, star of the 1950 film “Rashōmon” and 1954’s “Seven Samurai”), who is an executive at a company called National Shoes. He has just set in motion a hostile takeover of the company, leveraging every possession he has to meet the ¥50,000,000 bill. But just before he can accomplish this, the son of his chauffeur (played by Yutaka Sada) gets kidnapped and is being held for a ¥30,000,000 — about $208,382 in USD — ransom.
He calls over the police, and the investigation is led by Chief Detective Tokura (played by the great Tatsuya Nakadai, star of 1985’s “Ran” and 1961’s “Yōjimbō”), who helps wiretap his phones in an effort to find the boy. But Gondo must make a difficult choice on whether this young boy is worth his family’s livelihood, or to be labeled a heartless executive for the rest of his days.
The second half of the film focuses on the police scouring the streets, utilizing every clue they can find in order to bring out the kidnapper. It goes from the relative “high” of Gondo’s penthouse suite to the “low” slums of Yokohama, Japan. Every scene contains some of the best blocking in any film ever, with every single composition and framing being a feast for the eyes. Despite making the vast majority of his work in 4:3, Kurosawa manages to showcase that he is also the master of widescreen. Every single image fully utilizes the power of horizontal composition and makes the first act one of the most visually stunning sequences I have ever seen on film.
The kidnapper (played by Tsutomu Yamazaki, star of 1984’s “The Funeral”) is one of Kurosawa’s most compelling villains. His sinister demeanor and reflective sunglasses make his presence both visually dynamic and unforgettable. And his final confrontation with Gondo serves as one of Kurosawa’s most memorable endings in his entire filmography.
One of the reasons that the film was made is that Japanese law at the time did not have any criminal penalties for kidnapping if the were not related to the perpetrator or owed them money. Therefore, he intended the movie to be a political statement to advocate for higher jail sentences for kidnappers, which it ended up succeeding at. As a result, The New Republic named the movie as one of the 100 most significant political films of all time.
Modern audiences also greatly admire the film, and it is currently the sixth highest rated narrative feature film of all time on the social media site Letterboxd. It is also in the 100 highest rated films of all time on the IMDb top 250.
In just a few weeks, at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, noted director Spike Lee (1989’s “Do the Right Thing” and 1992’s “Malcolm X”) will premiere an English-language reinterpretation of the film. Named “Highest 2 Lowest,” Academy Award winner Denzel Washington (1989’s “Glory” and 2001’s “Training Day”) plays the primary role opposite rapper A$AP Rocky as the kidnapper. While his last remake of an acclaimed international film was the disastrous version of “Oldboy” from 2013, I have high hopes that he can do the source material from the greatest director of all time justice.
Even now, I am still shocked at how fundamentally perfect this movie is. This is both a fantastic allegory of class struggle and the best police procedural I have ever seen. It’s almost impossible to say, given the sheer number of perfect movies he made, but this just might be one of Kurosawa’s finest films, and among the greatest movies of all time. I cannot recommend this film enough, and consider it to be among the ten best films that I have ever seen. My final rating for “High and Low” is a perfect 10/10.