An executive's (Toshiro Mifune) son is kidnapped, but when it is discovered it was his chauffeur's son taken by mistake and the kidnapper threatens to kill him anyway if ransom isn't paid, the executive, who is embroiled in a power struggle within his corporation and needs all the money the kidnapper demands or face ruin, is truly stuck on the proverbial horns.

The first half of the film takes place in the executive's living room, and is a character study and a commentary on corporate greed and back-stabbing and where and to whom one's allegiance and loyalty belongs. Mifune's Gondo has hard choices to make and ruin of one kind or another lies at the end of either choice.

The second half of the film is a police procedural detailing the meticulous efforts to track down the kidnapper(s). I did not know this film was based on an Ed McBain 87th Precinct Novel until after I had seen it, but this latter part is classic policework McBain-style. Unfortunately, the police characters & personalities cannot be fully defined and detailed as in the 87th Precinct, but we come to get a sense of some of them. And the police work is spot-on. I love the 87th Precinct books, and several so-so movies have been made from them. This is actually one of the better efforts.

I don't think this is a great film, missing the poetry of the great Kurosawa classics, but it is solid work, and a good story told well. That'll do.


This Is An Extraordinarily Good Film   June 27, 2004
 16 out of 16 found this review helpful

Watched this a few days ago for about the fifth time and have been thinking about it ever since. I think it probably is my favorite Kurosawa film.

Toshiro Mifune plays a top executive in a shoe company who is secretly planning to take over the company. He wants to keep making quality shoes and gradually expand the market. The other executives want to make cheaper shoes and take advantage of the company's reputation. Mifune has raised every yen he can, including using his house, for the buyout, but his son is kidnapped. For the ransome he'll need all the money he's raised. He's prepared to do this for the sake of his son.

Then he finds out that the kidnappers made a mistake. They kidnapped his driver's son, who is the same age as his own. What a terrible moral dilemma. Would you or I give up every dime we had to save a neighbor's or an employee's son? Mifune does, and this act has a great effect on the police and the public.

The first half of the movie takes place in his house on a hill while all this unfolds. The second half is the chase to find the boy before he's killed and to capture the kidnapper. We move from the intensity of the dilemma unfolding in Mifune's home to the gritty business of the search which takes us into some of the lowest parts of the Japanese underworld.

Mifune is powerful in the role of the father, at first torn by the decision he has to make, then commited to finding his driver's son. Tatsuya Nakadai plays the detective, handsome, smooth, professional, and ultimately deeply touched by Mifune's integrity. Years later Nakadai played the leads in Kurosawa's Kagemusha and Ran. And it was good to see Mifune out of samurai costume.

High and Low is the work of a master. The DVD has the quality and extras one has come to expect from Criterion


MASTERPIECE   April 17, 2001
 15 out of 15 found this review helpful

HIGH as Toshiro - Kingo Kondo - Mifune's house which lies on a hill, admired by the whole city. HIGH as Kingo's wealthiness that allows him to buy nearly 50 % of the shares of the society he's working for. HIGH as the moral integrity of this man who appears as a gentle capitalist never forgetting that money must be earned in a proper honest way.

LOW as the condition of Kondo's servant whose only son has been kidnapped. LOW as the morals of Kondo's partners who are the true villains of the movie, LOW as the expectations of the drug addicts of Dope Alley who seem have been forgotten by the prosperous 1963 Japan. At least, LOW as Takeuchi's chances to escape a police humiliated by the machiavelic plot he has imagined.

Adapted from one of Ed McBain " 87th Precinct " novels, Akira Kurosawa's HIGH AND LOW is a masterpiece. The first half of the movie takes place in the living room of Kingo Gondo. Kurosawa gives here an unforgettable lesson of cinema helped by a great actor - Toshiro Mifune - who is going to pass through the whole variety of feelings, from Happiness to Despair, in a 36 hours period.

The second half of HIGH AND LOW depicts the police investigations in order to discover the kidnappers. Another scene worthy to stay in the annals of Movie History is the expressionist description - by night - of the hot streets of the city. A cinematographical enchantment.

No bonus features with this Criterion release except for a booklet. Superb sound and images as usual.

A DVD zone your library.


Good as a drama and interesting view of 1963 era Japan.   December 29, 1998
 13 out of 17 found this review helpful

This movie is interesting to fans of Japanese cinema and those interested in Japanese culture for many reasons. First, this is one of Kurosawa's few contemporary dramas; it is also interesting because he uses very long scenes, signals changes in characters' circumstances by changes in scenery, clothing, etc. Oddly, he has his characters wear their shoes in the house, very un-Japanese-like. However, since Mifune plays a shoe manufacturer.... Second, the film is set in the early 1960s, not 1950s. A key scene in the movie takes place on the shinkansen, aka "the bullet train," which was brand new when the film was made. Just as today's thrillers make use of the latest techonology, so Kurosawa uses the new bullet train. Third, especially for those who know modern-day Japan, the film presents some interesting, and even surprising, views of Japan almost 20 years after the end of the war. Fourth, the scene that takes place in the nightclub was shot in an actually working club, and the extras didn't know they were being filmed. Fifth, this film was the big break for Tsutomu Yamazaki, who played the main bad guy. Fans of Juzo Itami films may recall his as Goro in Tampopo and the love-hotel mogul in A Taxing Woman. He also appeared in Kurosawa's Red Beard and Kagemusha.