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.
Up Next in Noir
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Stray Dog
Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1949 • Japan
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Takashi ShimuraA bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog w...
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Tokyo Drifter
Directed by Seijun Suzuki • 1966 • Japan
Starring Tetsuya Watari, Chieko Matsubara, Tamio KawajiIn this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is thwarted when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. Director Seijun Suzuki’s onslaught ...
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Leave Her to Heaven
Directed by John M. Stahl • 1945 • United States
Starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne CrainNovelist Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) seems to have found the perfect woman in Ellen (Gene Tierney), a beautiful socialite who initiates a whirlwind romance and steers him into marriage before he...
