The Hidden Fortress is probably the most commercial of Akira Kurosawa's movies; a sprawling saga with a cast of thousands as feuding Japanese clans battle clans for ultimate power.
It stars our favourite Samurai warrior, Toshiro Mifune, known to us through such epics as The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Here he plays a Samurai General, Makabe, who remains loyal to his Princess Yukihime (Misa Uehara) although her clan has been all-but annihilated by its power-crazed rival.
We enter the story by following the fortunes of two bumbling, and venal peasants, Tahei (Minoru Chiaki) and Matakishi (Kamatari Fujiwara) who, while attempting to steal home across enemy lines, stumble across a cache of gold. They stumble across more than they bargained for. The cache belongs to the Princess, and General Makabe is determined to use the gold to rebuild the fortunes of her decimated clan.
It's a rollicking adventure, as our small band of peasants, Samurai and Royalty battle their way across enemy territory. The movie suprisingly intimate for the most part since the large action and crowd scenes are used sparingly. Kurosawa often employs quite subtle humour in his otherwise serious films - all subtlety is lost here, with the two peasants contributing heavy layers of crude slapstick throughout - fine if you like that sort of thing.
The Princess is played by Misa Uehara on her screen debut in a very modern punk-style way which seems at odds with the historic nature of the story. But it's an appealing characterisation, and though it seems out of character with Japanese society, her spunky performance is one of the strengths of the movie.
Much has been made of the borrowing of themes from this movie by George Lucas for his Star Wars cycle. And this is quite obvious -- though these are influences only, in much the same way as Kurosawa himself was heavily influenced by the classic American western movies, notably by director John Ford.
This is a more lightweight movie than many Kurosawa Samurai epics, but is the most unabashedly escapist in its all-out attempt to simply entertain. There's no grand morals here, or depictions of core human nature -- just lots of jokes, adventure, Samurai battles ..... and, surprise surprise, a happy ending.
This black-and-white anamorphic transfer is just slightly disappointing. It's a very soft image, and there is quite poor contrast tones and often indistinct shadow detail in the numerous night scenes.
But it is quite viewable, and there is very little actual film-stock damage evident. But there's a general effect that perhaps this print has seen better days -- it just lacks the clean focus and sharpness we're used to on the best transcriptions.
Strangely, running-time is just under 139 minutes, identical to the Criterion Region One release.
This lack of the PAL speedup factor, which usually cuts running time by 4 per cent, means this print must be either a more complete version (extremely unlikely given Criterion's reputation for producing definitive versions) or else the transfer has been derived from an NTSC source. That could account for the somewhat less than perfect image quality.
The sound quality is excellent. We're offered a choice of two-channel mono or 5.1 Surround. And although the Surround sound is not given a real workout of any kind, and bass effects are limited, the sound is very clear and strong, with no evident distortion. I sampled both during the course of the movie. While the mono and Surround tracks sounded virtually identical during dialogue passages, the Surround track definitely gave far greater presence to the music.
The original score is by a frequent Kurosawa collaborator Masaru Sato, and it is one of his very best. It mixes Western influences with traditional Japanese instrumentation and is reminiscent -- in effect, not themes -- of some of the scores produced by the finest soundtrack writer of all, Prokofiev, in his collaborations with director Sergei Eisenstein.
You can probably tell that though I enjoyed the movie, I was less than ecstatic about it. That's mainly because of the heavy emphasis on the two doltish, potential-rapist peasant characters -- I just don't like slapstick.
That's just me, though -- and I can see why The Hidden Fortress enjoys its great reputation. I'd suggest starting first though with Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Sanjuro to see Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune at their absolute best.