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The Hidden Fortress (Kakushi toride no san akunin) [DVD]

Screenplay : Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto, & Akira Kurosawa

MPAA Rating : NR

Year of Release : 1958

Stars : Toshiro Mifune (General Rokurota Makabe), Misa Uehara (Princess Yuki), Minoru Chiaki (Tahei), Kamatari Fujiwara (Matashichi), Susumu Fujita (Hyoe Tadokoro), Takashi Shimura (The Old General)

In the critical community during the 1950s, there were two paradoxical lines of criticism of postwar Japanese cinema. On the one hand, some critics complained that Japanese films were too exotic and densely layered, filled with exorbitant amounts of detail that weighed them down. On the other hand, there were those who complained that Japanese cinema was becoming too Westernized in its attempt to combine traditions of Eastern drama with Hollywood stylings, thus losing the essence of what made them Japanese.

The latter of these complaints was generally attached to the films of Akira Kurosawa, who, throughout the 1950s, revolutionized the Japanese cinema with one masterpiece after another even though many of those films were not fully appreciated until they were shown outside his native Japan. Writing in Cahiers du Cinéma in 1958, André Bazin argued that Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950) "can truly be said to have opened the gates of the West to the Japanese cinema."

Today, Kurosawa is widely regarded as not only one of the greatest filmmakers to ever emerge out of Japan, but one of the greatest filmmakers ever. While he was duly influenced by the work of such American filmmakers as John Ford and Charlie Chaplin, his influence over the "Film School Generation" of the 1970s, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas has been even more significant. Like Ford, Kurosawa was gifted with the ability to take "entertainment" genres like the action-adventure film and the Western and infuse them with bold themes about heroism and sacrifice and tell them with the kind of visual audacity that elevated the material above its roots.

A perfect example of this is Kurosawa's 1958 film The Hidden Fortress, which is justifiably well-known in the U.S. for having influenced the tone and narrative structure of George Lucas's Star Wars (1977). The Hidden Fortress is first and foremost an entertaining adventure story that fits neatly into the routine Japanese "Chambara" genre, which are action epics set in the 16th-century and dominated by feudalism. The narrative in The Hidden Fortress entails a brave samurai general named Rokurota Makabe (played by Kurosawa's favorite actor, Toshiro Mifune), who is charged with sneaking a feisty young princess named Yuki (Misa Uehara) and a huge treasure trove of 200 gold bars through heavily occupied enemy territory.

Makabe and Yuki are aided by unlikely allies: two bumbling, greedy peasants named Tahei (Minoru Chiaki) and Matashichi (Kamatari Fujiwara). While they play largely as comic relief, with their constant bickering and greed-infected buffoonery causing the serious-minded Makabe no end of difficulty, these two peasants are also wonderfully endearing in all their humanistic flaws. Their humanity is emphasized in the fact that Kurosawa tells the story largely through their eyes (the film both opens and ends with them).

One thing that has always set Kurosawa's action epics apart from so many others is his humanism, his ability to draw out the recognizably humane elements in all his characters, no matter how minor. Note, for example, in The Hidden Fortress, how Kurosawa develops the rivalry between Makabe and his arch-nemesis, an enemy general named Hyoe Tadokoro (Susumu Fujita). Kurosawa is not so much interested in them as enemies as he is in them as two sides of the same coin--both noble men fighting for their cause. It is little surprise, then, that they end up working together in the end, as they finally realize just how much they have in common, most notably their respect for each other as warriors. In other hands, this plot development might have felt forced or whimsical, but Kurosawa makes it work by staying true to the characters.

Of course, The Hidden Fortress is, as mentioned earlier, primarily an adventure film, and it is full of chases, near captures, sword fights, and epic battles, as well as plenty of humor, both of the slapstick and wordplay varieties. There are moments of intense violence (including the opening sequence), but much of the fighting is carefully choreographed to achieve a kind of visual elegance that is all-too-often lacking in American action films. At the same time, Kurosawa often lets the action run rampant, as in a breathtaking chase sequence involving Makabe running down two enemy soldiers that could easily be lifted right out of a Western.

The Hidden Fortress was one of the most expensive films made in postwar Japan and also the first to use the CinemaScope widescreen process, and Kurosawa makes great use of all the tools at his disposal. He utilizes the widescreen aspect ratio in innovative ways, both to expand the epic scope of the action (most notably a prisoner revolt during the first part of the film) and to frame his characters in ways that reinforce the emotional distance between them and their gradual coming together. For much of the film, Makabe is deeply distrustful of Tahei and Matashichi, as they are of him, and Kurosawa uses the depth of the screen to emphasize this repeatedly.

The Hidden Fortress is not usually regarded as one of Kurosawa's greatest films. It lacks the truly revolutionary nature of Rashomon or the cohesive epic grandeur of The Seven Samurai (1954). Yet, to speak of this grand piece of entertainment as "minor Kurosawa" speaks less about the status of the film than it does about the greatness of its director.

©2001 James Kendrick