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Drama, Crime, Thriller, Mystery 142 min NR
Rotten Tomatoes97%Metacritic90IMDb
Stark, intense drama almost beyond belief!
A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.
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Meticulous, overwhelming, bleak and open-ended.
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Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Taste Buds's numbers.
I’m always amazed at how a single film can be fundamentally characterized in multiple ways, but that’s understandable when the picture combines an array of diverse elements, each of which has a validity all its own that can subsequently lead to different overarching interpretations. Such is the case with this 1963 film classic from famed Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa, which provides the cinematic inspiration behind filmmaker Spike Lee’s current reimagination, “Highest 2 Lowest,” now playing theatrically. Like the current iteration, “High and Low” follows the story of a wealthy businessman, Kingo Gondô (Toshirô Mifune), who’s looking to take control of the shoe manufacturing company for which he works, a plan that requires him to leverage his entire personal fortune to make it possible. But, just as he’s about to close the deal, he’s distracted by the alleged kidnapping of his young son (Toshio Egi), a crime for which the perpetrator demands a ransom equal in value to the funds needed to cover the pending transaction. However, not long after hearing about the kidnapping, Gondô learns that the culprit has nabbed the wrong child, erroneously taking the son (Masahiko Shimazu) of his c
Read the whole review on TMDBI didn't take to this initially. The scenario reminded me a little of an episode of "Columbo" - a rather sterile, studio-set environment that came across as quite limiting. Once it gets going, though, it's one of the best crime thrillers I've seen in ages. It all centres around the kidnapping of a small boy for whom the anger-prone, shoe millionaire "Gondo" (a strong contribution from Toshirô Mifune) is supposed to pay a ransom of ¥30 million - a colossal sum. It turns out, though, that it's not his son who has been snatched - it's the child of his chauffeur. Why ought he to pay? Will he just get on with his impending company takeover or will he risk bankruptcy for the young "Shinichi"? This is a film split into three sections. The first deals with the decision making process around will he/won't he/why should he. Next, the police must try to apprehend this individual. This process is meticulously carried out and Kurosawa has chosen to immerse us in some of that detail, rather than just cursorily skip through it. This makes the whole detection process a much more interesting part of the film; allowing some aspects of the characterisation of the police officers to develop and also i
Read the whole review on TMDBA well worked, high stake crime thriller. The stakes are deeply personal to our main characters and puts them in an impossible situation. The performances and direction are very solid, the story is engaging and ultimately, it's a simple yet enjoyable film. Kurosawa comments on modern corporate greed and poverty in post-war Japan, and he does it very well.
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