In an interview, Akira Kurosawa said that he made THE HIDDEN FORTRESS as a deliberate counterpart to the earlier, darker films of his career; he'd just come off the back of his MACBETH adaptation, THRONE OF BLOOD (and, let's face it, things don't get much darker) and he wanted to make a lighter piece of entertainment for a change. THE HIDDEN FORTRESS is certainly that: it's a humour-filled adventure filled with action and spectacle. It's also one of my less favourite Kurosawa movies.
I like darkness. I like dark, violent movies that explore the depths of the human soul. Comedy has never really appealed me to me – my tastes in humour are very subjective – and this film has a lot of comedy. In fact, pretty much every scene featuring the two cowardly peasants is played for laughs, and their appeal quickly wears thin. I began looking forward to the (few) moments they weren't around, and dreading their return to the fray.
Still, the rest of the story is a lot of fun. Toshiro Mifune enjoys himself in a lighter role for a change, and gets to take part in some for-the-time spectacular action scenes; his duel with a rival general is particularly engaging. The scene-stealer of the piece is Misa Uehara, playing a princess who disguises herself as a mute for much of the production. Uehara is exceptional when given the opportunity to throw off the shackles surrounding the roles usually given to women in historical dramas and an intriguing forerunner to the later femme fatales who would populate Japanese samurai cinema come the 1970s.
The story, involving the transportation of some gold across enemy country, is solid, but the plot does take a great deal of time to get moving. I wasn't very involved for the exceptionally long-winded introduction, but things get a lot better in the second half, when the genuine threat of discovery and death adds suspense to keep things moving along nicely. THE HIDDEN FORTRESS may not be an example of Kurosawa at his most profound, but it's a fine example of the director at work in a different, non-serious genre for a change.
I like darkness. I like dark, violent movies that explore the depths of the human soul. Comedy has never really appealed me to me – my tastes in humour are very subjective – and this film has a lot of comedy. In fact, pretty much every scene featuring the two cowardly peasants is played for laughs, and their appeal quickly wears thin. I began looking forward to the (few) moments they weren't around, and dreading their return to the fray.
Still, the rest of the story is a lot of fun. Toshiro Mifune enjoys himself in a lighter role for a change, and gets to take part in some for-the-time spectacular action scenes; his duel with a rival general is particularly engaging. The scene-stealer of the piece is Misa Uehara, playing a princess who disguises herself as a mute for much of the production. Uehara is exceptional when given the opportunity to throw off the shackles surrounding the roles usually given to women in historical dramas and an intriguing forerunner to the later femme fatales who would populate Japanese samurai cinema come the 1970s.
The story, involving the transportation of some gold across enemy country, is solid, but the plot does take a great deal of time to get moving. I wasn't very involved for the exceptionally long-winded introduction, but things get a lot better in the second half, when the genuine threat of discovery and death adds suspense to keep things moving along nicely. THE HIDDEN FORTRESS may not be an example of Kurosawa at his most profound, but it's a fine example of the director at work in a different, non-serious genre for a change.