Kakushi-toride no san-akunin (1958)

Director:

Akira Kurosawa

Writers:

Shinobu Hashimoto (writer)
Ryûzô Kikushima (writer)
(more)

Release Date:

6 October 1960 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Comedy

Plot:

Lured by gold, two greedy peasants escort a man and woman across enemy lines. However, they do not realize that their companions are actually a princess and her general.

Plot Keywords:

Gold | Princess | Katana Sword | Jidai Geki | Samurai Warrior

Awards:

4 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Toshirô Mifune	...	General Rokurota Makabe
Misa Uehara	...	Princess Yuki
Minoru Chiaki	...	Tahei
Kamatari Fujiwara	...	Matakishi
Takashi Shimura	...	The Old General, Izumi Nagakura
Susumu Fujita	...	General Hyoe Tadokoro
Eiko Miyoshi	...	Old Lady-in-Waiting
Toshiko Higuchi	...	Farmer's Daughter bought from slave trader
Koji Mitsui	...	Guard
Shiten Ohashi	...	Samurai
Kichijiro Ueda	...	Slave Trader
Ikio Sawamura	...	Gambler
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Takuzo Kumagaya	...	Yamana foot soldier (as Jirô Kumagai)
Tadao Nakamaru	...	Young Man
Rinsaku Ogata	...	Second Young Man
Ichirô Chiba	...	Yamana foot soldier (uncredited)
Yû Fujiki	...	Barrier guard (uncredited)
Shoichi Hirose	...	Yamana soldier (uncredited)
Minoru Ito	...	Samurai on horseback (uncredited)
Shigemasa Kanazawa	...	Samurai on horseback (uncredited)
Takeshi Katô	...	Fleeing, bloody samurai (uncredited)
Kokuten Kodo	...	Old man in front of sign (uncredited)
Yoshio Kosugi	...	Akisuki soldier (uncredited)
Ryu Kuze	...	Akitsuki soldier (uncredited)
Masayoshi Nagashima	...	Yamana samurai (uncredited)
Haruo Nakajima	...	Akisuki soldier (uncredited)
Etsuro Nishijo	...	Yamana samurai (uncredited)
Takeo Obugawa	...	Guard at pass barrier (uncredited)
Toranosuke Ogawa	...	Magistrate of the bridge barrier (uncredited)
Senkichi Ômura	...	Soldier (uncredited)
Shin Otomo	...	Samurai on horseback (uncredited)
Yutaka Sada	...	Guard at bridge barrier (uncredited)
Sachio Sakai	...	Captured foot soldier (uncredited)
Haruya Sakamoto	...	Samurai on horseback (uncredited)
Makoto Satô	...	Yamada foot soldier (uncredited)
Haruo Suzuki	...	Samurai on horseback (uncredited)
Yoshifumi Tajima	...	Potential slave buyer (uncredited)
Akira Tani	...	Captured foot soldier (uncredited)
Nakajiro Tomita	...	Potential slave buyer (uncredited)
Yoshio Tsuchiya	...	Samurai on horse (uncredited)
Hiroyoshi Yamaguchi	...	Samurai on horseback (uncredited)

Directed by
Akira Kurosawa

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Shinobu Hashimoto		writer
Ryûzô Kikushima		writer
Akira Kurosawa		writer
Hideo Oguni		writer

Produced by
Sanezumi Fujimoto	....	producer (as Masumi Fujimoto)
Akira Kurosawa	....	producer

Original Music by
Masaru Satô

Cinematography by
Kazuo Yamasaki		(as Ichio Yamazeki)

Film Editing by
Akira Kurosawa

Production Design by
Yoshirô Muraki

Costume Design by
Masahiro Katô

Makeup Department
Yoshiko Matsumoto	....	hair stylist
Junjiro Yamada	....	hair stylist

Production Management
Hiroshi Nezu	....	production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Yoshimitsu Banno	....	assistant director (as Yoshimitsu Sakano)
Yôichi Matsue	....	assistant director
Samaji Nonagase	....	chief assistant director
Ken Sano	....	assistant director
Yasuyoshi Tajitsu	....	assistant director
Masahiro Takase	....	assistant director

Art Department
Kôhei Ezaki	....	art supervisor
Koichi Hamamura	....	property master
Shinko Kato	....	assistant art director

Sound Department
Ichirô Minawa	....	sound effects editor
Yoshiro Miyamoto	....	sound assistant
Hisashi Shimonaga	....	sound mixer
Fumio Yanoguchi	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Sei Arai	....	assistant lighting technician
Masao Fukuda	....	still photographer
Ichirô Inohara	....	lighting technician
Takao Saitô	....	assistant camera
Daisaku Kimura	....	assistant camera (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Chozo Kobata	....	negative cutter

Other crew
Shigeru Endo	....	horseback riding instructor
Takuyuki Inoue	....	production assistant
Ienori Kaneko	....	horseback riding instructor
Yoji Ken	....	choreographer
Teruyo Nogami	....	script supervisor
Koichi Noguchi	....	accountant
Yoshio Sugino	....	swordplay instructor
Yuichi Yoshitake	....	acting office

Production Companies

• Toho Company

Distributors

• Toho Company (1958) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Albex (1960) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Bright Angel Distribution (2004) (Netherlands) (theatrical) (reissue)
• Cowboy Pictures (2002) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Meridian-Films (1961) (Finland) (theatrical)
• Criterion Collection, The (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2009) (USA) (DVD)
• Media Home Entertainment (1986) (USA) (VHS)
• Nihon Eiga Satellite Broadcasting (2007) (Japan) (TV)
• Sandrew Metronome International (2003) (Finland) (DVD)
• Total Film Home Entertainment (2004) (Netherlands) (DVD)

Special Effects

• Toho Special Effects Group

Other Companies

• Kyoto Costumes  costumes
• Toho Studios  sound stages

Also Known As:

The Hidden Fortress (USA)
The Three Villains of the Hidden Fortress (informal English title)
Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress (International: English title) (literal title)
Three Rascals in the Hidden Fortress (International: English title)

Runtime:

139 min | USA:126 min | Finland:114 min (1959)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Perspecta Stereo (optical prints) | Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:K-11 (re-rating) | Finland:K-16 (original rating) | Spain:13 | UK:PG (video rating) (1994) | UK:A (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Mount Fuji, Shizuoka, Japan

Company:

Toho Company

Trivia:

In an interview for the Criterion collection DVD, George Lucas stated that while this film is a story about a princess and her protectors that this was not the primary element that he employed in Star Wars. He stated that he was more concerned with the way that Hidden Fortress is told through the eyes of two lesser characters. In Hidden Fortress it is the two thieves; in Star Wars it is C3PO and R2D2. In both films the comical interplay between the two characters is a major theme.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Tahei: Get away from me! You stink of dead bodies!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences (2006) (V)

Toho Vision

Any Kurosawa film is worth watching, but the focus of interest shifts from project to project. This time around, his concern is the new aspect ratio of 'cinemascope' copied and renamed by Toho. Kurosawa is first a visual storyteller who scripts in pictures, each one dramatically framed. All his life until here, that frame was the same, but all of a sudden it changed.

It is a matter of there being three territories where there was formally one. The new territories are on the left and right, which in the original cinerama were actually two additional cameras. One really needs to study his framing in the old format to understand how significant this challenge was. He was master -- indeed largely the creator -- of a visual grammar and the rules had changed.

As with all his scripts, the story reflects his own challenges. So we have a story about three territories and a journey that spans them all. The 'middle' territory is under attack, and our characters must leave their fortress and go all the way from left to right to survive. (Notice the symbols he uses for these three klans.) The two hapless peasants represent to the story what actors represent to the 'real' enterprise of film-making: relatively ignorant, gold-chasers, likely to turn on each other, and liable to go where they are not supposed to. The story is told from their perspective. The gold in the story is hidden in sticks. The gold in the film is hidden in similar harvesting of nature by the eye.

(Mifune's pride and Kurosawa's control were much like that shown here between Mifune's samurai and the peasants. Mifune would eventually run away from Kurosawa's -- probably much needed -- overbearing command. Mifune would end up wealthy and celebrated in Japan. Kurosawa not so.)

At the end of the story, the peasant-actors are on a grand stair that mirrors a similar stair we saw earlier which was the scene of a huge conflict (in turn mirroring the battle on Eisenstein's Odessa steps in 'Potemkin'). But this second time, we are at peace, the frame is serene. Kurosawa has wrestled this new eye and mastered it.

Kurosawa did not respond to the wide format like his American peers who preferred awesome panoramas. His approach to framing had always been layered, usually three layers of activity in fore, middle and background. Here, he was able to relax the axis so that the layers did not have be so much on top of one another. And he reinvented his strategy of panning of motion: compare a running sequence here to the famous woodcutter's running in the beginning of 'Rashomon.' Look at how he panned the General's attack on horseback. He still does diagonals, but fewer, less steep and with less static import. He now has more natural horizontals in his greytone/greystone arrangements so has to create more artificial verticals.

Obligatory Star Wars comment:

I am sure Lucas' film school professors would have explained the relationship of story and visual challenge this way. So that is the real template Lucas took in conceiving his project. His goal was a similar marriage of the visual (space) with story (Joseph Campbell inspired myth). His hidden gold is that miraculous alchemical element in Jedi blood.