Post by petrolino on Dec 9, 2017 0:33:59 GMT
The crime drama 'High And Low' is director Akira Kurosawa's sly reopening of a case laid out in Ed McBain's book 'King's Ransom : An 87th Precinct Mystery' (1959). It's a cruel tale of kidnapping set in Yokohama, Japan in which corporate executive Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) is fending off attempts at a messy takeover of his footwear company National Shoes. An unexpected ransom demand leads Gondo to call in the authorities.
The first 55 minutes of 'High And Low' is concentrated upon a tense stand-off that becomes a catalyst for soul-searching and class warfare. Kurosawa makes the brave decision to retain a consistent camera level around chest height, which is no mean technical feat as the camera set-ups do change. This part of the movie is effectively a filmed stage play confined to an elevated luxury apartment with a scenic view overlooking busy Yokohama. Despite the lack of action, it's rendered gripping by terse dialogue exchanges and the technical mastery of Kurosawa who's assisted on this project by loyal cinematographers Asakazu Nakai and Takao Saito.
Kurosawa starts loosening the technical shackles when he cuts to a tense train sequence. The second half of 'High And Low' follows a criminal investigation as cops are led by their quarry deep into the underworld. This portion of the picture's hostile, believable and bristling with resentment. The story reaches a disagreeable conclusion.
'High And Low' is a compelling police procedural handled by a master filmmaker operating with extreme confidence. Its opening act develops from broad satire into a dramatic stalemate, setting the stage for tragedy via impulsive interactions. The forensic investigation that follows devolves into a desperate manhunt. Toshiro Mifune is great as Kingo Gondo, a hard-drinking corporate swine whose poor parenting, aggressive smoking and tendency to swallow words mask a troubled soul. Mifune receives strong support from Kyoko Kagawa as emotional mother Reiko Gondo, Yutaka Sada as lowly chauffeur Aoki, Tatsuya Nakadai as tactical investigator Chief Detective Tokura and Kenjiro Ishiyama as measured investigator Chief Detective Bos'n Taguchi.
"Based on Ed McBain's novel, "King's Ransom," "High and Low" illuminates its world with a wholeness and complexity you rarely see in film. As Akira Kurosawa weaves together character study, social commentary and police procedure, he combines what might have been a whole series of movies for another, lesser director. It's not one of his masterpieces, but "High and Low" fully illustrates why Kurosawa is regarded as Japan's foremost director."
- Paul Attanasio, The Washington Post
"Toshiro Mifune, the actor who collaborated with Kurosawa on eighteen films, once wrote of the director, “When you see his films, you find them full of realizations of ideas, of emotions, of a philosophy which surprises with its strength, even shocks with its power. You had not expected to be so moved to find within your own self this depth of understanding.” More simply, Kurosawa sought to understand how people and their sometimes-clashing beliefs coexist: “Why can’t people be happier together?” the director once wrote. This question saturates each of the director’s films, and by attempting to answer a question that seeks to penetrate our basic humanity, he creates connections between filmgoers from various corners of the world. Although he intended his pictures for Japanese audiences alone, his themes resonate beyond the East. Perhaps this stems from his fondness for Western cinema and culture, in particular the films of John Ford. Through his emulation of Western styles, he unconsciously explores the similarities between disparate cultures in narrative, aesthetic, and thematic terms. In many ways, Kurosawa’s films teach audiences better ways of understanding themselves and the worlds they inhabit. Indeed, Kurosawa had such an edifying presence on his sets that many of his collaborators called him their sensei, or teacher, as his films teach about the human condition, the world, and a person’s place in the world."
- Brian Eggert, Deep Focus Review
- Paul Attanasio, The Washington Post
"Toshiro Mifune, the actor who collaborated with Kurosawa on eighteen films, once wrote of the director, “When you see his films, you find them full of realizations of ideas, of emotions, of a philosophy which surprises with its strength, even shocks with its power. You had not expected to be so moved to find within your own self this depth of understanding.” More simply, Kurosawa sought to understand how people and their sometimes-clashing beliefs coexist: “Why can’t people be happier together?” the director once wrote. This question saturates each of the director’s films, and by attempting to answer a question that seeks to penetrate our basic humanity, he creates connections between filmgoers from various corners of the world. Although he intended his pictures for Japanese audiences alone, his themes resonate beyond the East. Perhaps this stems from his fondness for Western cinema and culture, in particular the films of John Ford. Through his emulation of Western styles, he unconsciously explores the similarities between disparate cultures in narrative, aesthetic, and thematic terms. In many ways, Kurosawa’s films teach audiences better ways of understanding themselves and the worlds they inhabit. Indeed, Kurosawa had such an edifying presence on his sets that many of his collaborators called him their sensei, or teacher, as his films teach about the human condition, the world, and a person’s place in the world."
- Brian Eggert, Deep Focus Review
Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai & Yuzo Kayama
The first 55 minutes of 'High And Low' is concentrated upon a tense stand-off that becomes a catalyst for soul-searching and class warfare. Kurosawa makes the brave decision to retain a consistent camera level around chest height, which is no mean technical feat as the camera set-ups do change. This part of the movie is effectively a filmed stage play confined to an elevated luxury apartment with a scenic view overlooking busy Yokohama. Despite the lack of action, it's rendered gripping by terse dialogue exchanges and the technical mastery of Kurosawa who's assisted on this project by loyal cinematographers Asakazu Nakai and Takao Saito.
Kyoko Kagawa
'Death Note' - Kenji Kawai
Kurosawa starts loosening the technical shackles when he cuts to a tense train sequence. The second half of 'High And Low' follows a criminal investigation as cops are led by their quarry deep into the underworld. This portion of the picture's hostile, believable and bristling with resentment. The story reaches a disagreeable conclusion.
"To what degree is an adaptation its own invention? Akira Kurosawa did not immediately know that his King Lear-inspired 1985 epic, Ran, was inspired by King Lear. The original adaptation sprang from the Japanese parable of Morikawa, a 16th-century feudal warlord and his three sons living through the civil wars. Some of the same themes float around that drama – the treachery of power; the provisional nature of our identities and how quickly they can be unpinned; filial betrayal or loyalty and the epic sorrows of the human condition, with mortality looming for – and denied by – each of us. So when he embarked on making the film, Lear was not in the mix. It was only at the planning stage that Kurosawa began to see Lear emerging, and merging too with the Japanese fable in an inexplicable way. This begs questions. Where does the story of Morikawa end and Lear begin? And where does it leave the concept of adaptation if it is not a conscious decision? Is the film, in fact, more about Kurosawa than Shakespeare? The late American film critic Roger Ebert thought so when it was first released. He wondered if it “may be as much about Kurosawa’s life as Shakespeare’s play”. By the ‘80s, Kurosawa was established as a heavyweight, having made more than 20 films. Yet in the previous two decades getting films out to audiences had become a struggle for him, and the competing force of Japanese television might have made him feel his star was on the wane. How Lear, but also, how not-Lear. Ebert’s is an interesting idea – that in the end adaptation might return us to creative autobiography of a kind, even if in hindsight. We can watch Kurosawa’s beautiful classic next month when it is restored and re-released to tie in with Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary. Having watched an early screening, I spotted the inventions within the adaptation, though whatever changes Kurosawa made, Shakespeare would have approved. His plays, bar few, were adaptations in themselves; invention, as I have said previously in these columns, lay within kinks of the old, inherited stories. King Lear existed before Shakespeare’s King Lear, but the Bard made it his."
- Arifa Akbar, The Independent
"The Chinese entertainment company Huayi Brothers Media have revealed a number of new projects, including The Masque of the Black Death, based on an unfilmed script by one of the all-time great directors, Akira Kurosawa. The master Japanese filmmaker began writing the screenplay shortly before completing his 1975 epic Dersu Uzala. The script was finished before his death in 1998, but it never went into production. The film is an adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe short story ‘The Masque of the Red Death’, which follows a prince’s attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as ‘the Red Death’, by hiding in his abbey. The prince hosts a masquerade ball along with other nobles within the abbey, until a mysterious figure suffering from the plague appears. It won’t be the first time Poe’s story has been adapted for the screen, with Roger Corman having directed Vincent Price in a 1964 version. There’s also a 1989 remake, and various productions for the stage, radio and numerous comic books. The screenplay, which is now available to read online, significantly expands on the original story, with the far-reaching plague giving the film an apocalyptic setting. According to Akira Kurosawa Info, the script was not intended as a finished draft but rather an exercise in recreating the original story. No director has been attached to the project yet, but the studio is reportedly seeking a young filmmaker, and a tentative release date is set for 2020. Seeing an expanded version of this short story will provide audiences with a rare window into the artistic process of this highly influential filmmaker, 20 years after his death."
- Jack Godwin writing on 6thMarch 2017, Little White Lies
- Arifa Akbar, The Independent
"The Chinese entertainment company Huayi Brothers Media have revealed a number of new projects, including The Masque of the Black Death, based on an unfilmed script by one of the all-time great directors, Akira Kurosawa. The master Japanese filmmaker began writing the screenplay shortly before completing his 1975 epic Dersu Uzala. The script was finished before his death in 1998, but it never went into production. The film is an adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe short story ‘The Masque of the Red Death’, which follows a prince’s attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as ‘the Red Death’, by hiding in his abbey. The prince hosts a masquerade ball along with other nobles within the abbey, until a mysterious figure suffering from the plague appears. It won’t be the first time Poe’s story has been adapted for the screen, with Roger Corman having directed Vincent Price in a 1964 version. There’s also a 1989 remake, and various productions for the stage, radio and numerous comic books. The screenplay, which is now available to read online, significantly expands on the original story, with the far-reaching plague giving the film an apocalyptic setting. According to Akira Kurosawa Info, the script was not intended as a finished draft but rather an exercise in recreating the original story. No director has been attached to the project yet, but the studio is reportedly seeking a young filmmaker, and a tentative release date is set for 2020. Seeing an expanded version of this short story will provide audiences with a rare window into the artistic process of this highly influential filmmaker, 20 years after his death."
- Jack Godwin writing on 6thMarch 2017, Little White Lies
'High And Low' is a compelling police procedural handled by a master filmmaker operating with extreme confidence. Its opening act develops from broad satire into a dramatic stalemate, setting the stage for tragedy via impulsive interactions. The forensic investigation that follows devolves into a desperate manhunt. Toshiro Mifune is great as Kingo Gondo, a hard-drinking corporate swine whose poor parenting, aggressive smoking and tendency to swallow words mask a troubled soul. Mifune receives strong support from Kyoko Kagawa as emotional mother Reiko Gondo, Yutaka Sada as lowly chauffeur Aoki, Tatsuya Nakadai as tactical investigator Chief Detective Tokura and Kenjiro Ishiyama as measured investigator Chief Detective Bos'n Taguchi.
