High and Low

Director: Akira Kurosawa

1963 / 143min / 35mm

Kurosawa’s formal genius and rare humanism are on full display in this white-knuckle thriller—source of an upcoming remake by Spike Lee—which transposes the materials of an Ed McBain novel to contemporary Japan, starring Toshiro Mifune as a rich industrialist thrown into a nerve-shredding situation after, first believing his son has been kidnapped, discovering that his chauffeur’s child was taken by accident. Boasting nigh-constant visual invention, geometric precision of framing, an inventive narrative structure, and a bevy of staggering set pieces—the train hand-off! the down-and-dirty G.I. bar!—High & Low is a virtuoso work that’s also a deeply moral one, exploring the meaning of “justice” in a society defined by vast economic disparity.

Part of In Pursuit of Shadows