Overshadowed by bigger efforts like "the Seven Samurai", its nature distorted by its status as the official "inspiration" for "Star Wars", "the Hidden Fortress" is a unique delight in the Kurosawa canon, balancing wry humor and deep empathy on the line between realism and fairy tale. The film opens and closes with the two bickering farmer/soldiers who inspired R2-D2 and C3P0, but they're nothing like their "Star Wars" descendants -- their swings from slapstick to base treachery make them so weird and un-Hollywood that Lucas' robots seem neutered by comparison. Mandatory viewing, for many reasons.
Review of The Hidden Fortress
