The Hidden Fortress (Kurosawa) 1958 Blu Ray / Ultra HD BFI
The time is the 16th century. A period of civil wars. Princess Uki with her family and their clan gold are attempting to escape to a peaceful province. The enemy have posted up a reward for her capture. She’s accompanied by her General Makabe Rokurota (Toshiro Mifune, who else could it be!) and two greedy and quarrelsome farmers. Onto this slight (almost formulaic) story Kurosawa has applied great craft and artistry.
You don’t get, as you did with his previous samurai adventures, a sense of the total orchestration of a whole film. The Hidden Fortress is a film of unforgettable set pieces that are searing and intensely staged, functioning as a relief from the lives of the characters. It’s not that the princess, the general and the two farmers aren’t credible but more that the script doesn’t allow for enough psychological development.
The pragmatic general says little but impresses with his decision making (though I missed the philosophical musing on war that’s present in Seven Samurai); Princess Uki (played by Misa Uehra) is mostly emotionally monotone (except for the sheltered Princess’s reaction to the harsh life of her subjects) and the two farmers keep resorting to a knockabout comedy routine that feels derived from Laurel & Hardy (Funny at the beginning but becoming increasingly strained later on).
But the set pieces in The Hidden Fortress are breathtaking for their mastery of composition and sensual power. Those early civil war scenes of the running men, quickly herded up as prisoners, are sweaty, dark and apocalyptic (Kurosawa’s brilliance at crowd scenes is comparable to Roberto Rosselini and Otto Preminger); the general’s lance fight with an enemy general is a superlative clash of warrior skill; a horseback escape moment for the four adventurers is both exhilarating and liberating; but best of all is the fire dance festival episode – the group are forced to throw their gold (hidden in firewood) onto a bonfire and dance with the locals.
That moment is just under five minutes of screen time. Its mad sensual mix of being captured in a frenetic dance; frustration at temporally losing the treasure and experiencing, through the fervent townsfolk, a ritual, about the perishable nature of human life, are astonishing and constitute one of the greatest sequences in all of Kurosawa’s cinema.
The Hidden Fortress is the last of the samurai films to be issued in a new restoration from the BFI. It’s not the greatest of Kurosawa’s period dramas: as it’s more of an episodic comedy adventure film. The Hidden Fortress is lighter in tone and somewhat overlong, stunningly shot in black and white Tohoscope (now glowingly beautiful in 4k) and it was a model influence for George Lucas’s Star Wars. Minor Kurosawa then but very compelling entertainment.
Alan Price©2025.
The Hidden Fortress (Kurosawa) 1958 Blu Ray / Ultra HD BFI
The time is the 16th century. A period of civil wars. Princess Uki with her family and their clan gold are attempting to escape to a peaceful province. The enemy have posted up a reward for her capture. She’s accompanied by her General Makabe Rokurota (Toshiro Mifune, who else could it be!) and two greedy and quarrelsome farmers. Onto this slight (almost formulaic) story Kurosawa has applied great craft and artistry.
You don’t get, as you did with his previous samurai adventures, a sense of the total orchestration of a whole film. The Hidden Fortress is a film of unforgettable set pieces that are searing and intensely staged, functioning as a relief from the lives of the characters. It’s not that the princess, the general and the two farmers aren’t credible but more that the script doesn’t allow for enough psychological development.
The pragmatic general says little but impresses with his decision making (though I missed the philosophical musing on war that’s present in Seven Samurai); Princess Uki (played by Misa Uehra) is mostly emotionally monotone (except for the sheltered Princess’s reaction to the harsh life of her subjects) and the two farmers keep resorting to a knockabout comedy routine that feels derived from Laurel & Hardy (Funny at the beginning but becoming increasingly strained later on).
But the set pieces in The Hidden Fortress are breathtaking for their mastery of composition and sensual power. Those early civil war scenes of the running men, quickly herded up as prisoners, are sweaty, dark and apocalyptic (Kurosawa’s brilliance at crowd scenes is comparable to Roberto Rosselini and Otto Preminger); the general’s lance fight with an enemy general is a superlative clash of warrior skill; a horseback escape moment for the four adventurers is both exhilarating and liberating; but best of all is the fire dance festival episode – the group are forced to throw their gold (hidden in firewood) onto a bonfire and dance with the locals.
That moment is just under five minutes of screen time. Its mad sensual mix of being captured in a frenetic dance; frustration at temporally losing the treasure and experiencing, through the fervent townsfolk, a ritual, about the perishable nature of human life, are astonishing and constitute one of the greatest sequences in all of Kurosawa’s cinema.
The Hidden Fortress is the last of the samurai films to be issued in a new restoration from the BFI. It’s not the greatest of Kurosawa’s period dramas: as it’s more of an episodic comedy adventure film. The Hidden Fortress is lighter in tone and somewhat overlong, stunningly shot in black and white Tohoscope (now glowingly beautiful in 4k) and it was a model influence for George Lucas’s Star Wars. Minor Kurosawa then but very compelling entertainment.
Alan Price©2025.
By Alan Price • film, year 2025 • Tags: Alan Price, film