The Hidden Fortress (1958)
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The Hidden Fortress Movie Review
The Hidden Fortress is a 1958 jidaigeki adventure film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune. It’s far from the director’s best works.
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“Hide a stone among stones
and a man among men“
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Two Japanese peasants try and fail to make a profit from a tribal war. They find a man and woman whom they believe are simple tribe members hiding in a fortress. Although the peasants don’t know that they are a general and a princess, the peasants agree to accompany the pair to safety in return for gold.
Needless to say, this movie is fun in its plot. Its action and especially adventure elements worked splendidly, and it’s simply a very enjoyable movie in most of its scenes with the exception of a much slower beginning as the film takes its sweet time to get going plus the runtime is needlessly protracted.
But no matter how fun, engaging and ultimately charming this movie is, it’s a lackluster Akira Kurosawa flick as it lacks the majesty and particularly the sophistication that all his greatest films share. As a blockbuster, this film surely is terrific. But I’d come to expect more from this particular director.
Toshiro Mifune is good as the general reliably so as he’s a director-favorite actor whom he employed all the time. The princess is also an interesting, well realized character. But in my opinion the highlights of this movie are the two peasants. They are atypical protagonists as they are very cowardly and extremely greedy, but that worked in the context of the story.
And they made the movie more original as the humorous approach is overwhelming, but great. This pairing is terrific and it drives this entire flick to greater heights as their anime-like shenanigans and behavior consistently provide strong entertainment.
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The Hidden Fortress is also gloriously scored per usual, especially in the opening and closing scenes. Some parts are suitably quite epic in scope, and some are wonderfully intimate. I loved the cinematography and the production design as well. Everything here is technically effective, but just its long runtime and a lack of bigger themes and threads made it an empty watch in a way. As for its influences on ‘A New Hope’, they are obvious in some areas, but overall the two movies aren’t as similar as many would proclaim.
The Hidden Fortress is a somewhat weaker Akira Kurosawa fare which benefits from strong audio-visuals, excellent characterization, different, amusing protagonists and a great adventurous approach, but it is obviously very lacking thematically speaking and its runtime is needlessly protracted.
