Classics in the Browning
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
With Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyoko Kagawa
Not Rated, 143 minutes
In Japanese with English subtitles
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in High and Low, the highly influential domestic drama and police procedural from director Akira Kurosawa recently revamped by Spike Lee in Highest 2 Lowest. Adapting Ed McBain's detective novel King's Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society.
*Co-presented by the Meg and John P. Brogan Endowment for Classic Cinema.