- dir. AKIRA KUROSAWA
- year. 1958
- country. JAPAN
- run-time. 2h 19min
- rating. PG
£5.00 (£3.50 conc.)
Doors 18:30 - Film 19:00
Deptford Cinema pays tribute in 2017 to Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa- one of the world’s greatest directors, who helped catapult Japanese cinema onto the global stage. Though he turned his hand to many genres over his long career, it is undeniably his period action films, or "jidaigeki", that have left the greatest mark on world cinema. Kurosawa also gifted the world one of the great director-actor collaborations, tapping the ferocious energy and charisma of star Toshirô Mifune over a dozen times. All the films in our season see Mifune in a leading role.
The Hidden Fortress is a grand-scale adventure built for widescreen, and featuring the inimitable Toshiro Mifune as a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess (a fierce Misa Uehara) as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory with a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants in tow. If this sounds familiar at all, it is because this rip-roaring tale was a major influence on the plot of George Lucas’s Star Wars. A huge hit in its day following on from Kurosawa's acclaimed Seven Samurai, this Golden Bear Berlinale prize winner (1959 Berlin Film Festival) remains the perfect blend of wit and fairy tale action.