The Hidden Fortress (Japanese: 隠し砦の三悪人; Kakushi toride no san akunin) is a 1958 film by Akira Kurosawa, starring the great Japanese actor, Toshirô Mifune and Misa Uehara as general Rokurota Makabe and Princess Yukihime whom it is Makabe's mission to help and protect. Accompanied by two luckless peasants, Tahei and Matakichi (Minoru Chiaki and Kamatari Fujiwara), who largely provide comedy relief, and later joined by a farmer’s daughter (Toshiko Higuchi) they acquire from a slave-trader, or procuror. Together, the five make an arduous and desperate trek through enemy territory; transporting a treasure of gold that the princess and the general hope to use to rebuild the princess’s clan and military to retake her kingdom one day.
The Hidden Fortress employs a non-traditional structure with respect to the characters creating a structure where the audience is gradually introduced to each character--often through layers of misdirection—an idea that becomes a recurring theme in the script as character development follows introduction and the character strips away a disguise to reveal unexpected aspects of the self.
Tahei and Matakichi, the two peasants who find themselves captured and put to forced labor by the Princess’s enemies, escape only to find themselves ensnared by the machinations of a bandit, who is actually, ‘the Awesome Generalissimo Makabe Rokurota.’ The spoiled and arrogant princess who must feign being mute to avoid betraying her nobility through her speech, demands that Makabe buy the farm-girl from a procurer to set her free; after which she repeatedly demonstrates deep wells of nobility by staying with the group and doing everything she can to help and protect the princess. In these ways and in others, the Hidden Fortress rises above its genre, transcending the idea of adventure as a mere catalog of exciting events to become an exploration of characters demonstrating personal virtues despite the harshness and violence of the world they live in.
As film, The Hidden Fortress demonstrates what Kurosawa was capable of at the height of his powers as a director storyteller with a rain of plot complications, hair’s breadth escapes through visually compelling locations, and character development, brought together through tightly realized action in visually compelling settings. These elements combined with Kurosawa’s masterful photography makes The Hidden Fortress one of the best works of post-war Japanese cinema, and one of the greatest black-and-white adventure films of all time.
Influence of The Hidden Fortress can be seen in George Lucas's Star Wars. Particularly the telling of the story from the points of view of the film's lowliest characters. The relationship of R2-D2 and C-3PO is very similar to that of Tahei and Matakichi. Also, the characters of Obi-Wan and Princess Leia are supposeded to mirror those of the general Rokurota Makabe and Princess Yukihime.
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