Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1963 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Kyoko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in HIGH AND LOW (TENGOKU TO JIGOKU), the highly influential domestic drama and police procedural from director Akira Kurosawa. Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel “King’s Ransom,” Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society.
This audio commentary recorded in 2008 features film historian Stephen Prince, author of “The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa” and professor of film studies at Virginia Tech.
In this rare interview, actor Toshiro Mifune shares stories about his life and acting career with popular Japanese TV talk-show host Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. The interview was recorded in 1981 for her show “Tetsuko no heya” (Tetsuko’s Room).
The following interview with award-winning actor Tsutomu Yamazaki, who plays the kidnapper, Takeuchi, in HIGH AND LOW, was recorded in Tokyo in 2008.
