High and Low - The Memorable TV DVD Review

Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Region 4 | PAL | PG | 137 minutes
Available to buy
Release Date: 17 May 2006
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Reviewer: Alan R
Extras: Yes

ANYONE IN IT WE KNOW?

Toshiro Mifune as Kondo Gondo and Tatsuya as Detective Inspector Tokura.

WHAT’S IT ABOUT THEN?

An influential Japanese Shoe manufacturing company is having a boardroom power struggle and several directors are keen to band together to oust the chairman whom they feel is old fashioned in his views. But one amongst their number called Kingo Gondo is planning on going it alone and he has used his entire personal fortune to buy up available stock until he owns more than the chairman and the other directors combined and he plans to take over when he has finalised his latest stock purchase with the last of his vast funds.

In actual fact the initial boardroom struggle does not turn out to be the thrust of the film - instead it is used as the way of justifying the dilemma Gondo faces when he has no funds to spare in the events that follow. The story that will dominate the film begins when Gondo's son is seemingly kidnapped and he gets a ransom demand which he is going to pay. But then his son turns up safe and well and it turns out that the boy kidnapped is in fact his chauffeur's son taken by mistake. But the kidnapper still demands he pay and Gondo agonises on whether he wants to pay the millions of yen demanded because his entire takeover plans will fall through if he does.

The police become covertly involved and once Gondo agrees to pay and the ransom is handed over and the missing boy returned the rest of the film is about the police's attempts to track down the culprit and recover the money.

Is It Any Good? It is quite a slow moving story with some long-winded sequences of police procedure where nothing too much develops. But if you shift gears down from what a modern version might be like then it's a solidly made detective drama although possibly a fairly routine sort of plot.

It is presented in a (very) wide-screen format with an excellent quality black and white print. It is in its original Japanese language only but the DVD has optional English subtitles.

ANY SPECIAL FEATURES?

Stills gallery | Original poster artwork | Dolby Digital 4.0 | An essay by Dr Adrian Danks, Head of Cinema Studies, RMIT University, President & Co-curator of the Melbourne Cinemathèque