I hope no one is put off by the fact that this was directed by Akira Kurosawa and has Japanese subtitles. Kurosawa, true, directed some atmospheric stuff. Who can forget the ghost scene in "Throne of Blood"? But for all that, his films always packed a commercial wallop.
This one will keep you in your seat with your eyes open. It's anything but artsy. What with the overwrought style of acting -- the pacing, the gritting of teeth, the outraged shouting, the sly sneaking about on crowded streets -- this particular atmosphere practically crackles with tension.
The opening third introduces us to Toshiro Mifune, the self-made millionaire, who has secretly borrowed all the money he can to buy a controlling interest in National Shoes so that he can make quality products. Naturally the Board of Directors want to make junk shoes and turn a profit -- period. Mifune is not an especially generous or likable guy. He's honest and fair but gruff with his family and employees.
Then -- chaos. Some kidnappers have taken his six-year-old son and are demanding 30M yen, which is to say everything that Mifune owns or has borrowed. So far the usual kidnap-for-ransom formula is followed: put the money in unmarked bills in two satchels, don't contact the police, wait for further instructions, and so forth. Mifune immediately agrees but, as is also part of the formula, he contacts the police who sneak into his house and record the calls he gets from the evildoers. We've seen this before, of course, will Glenn Ford or Mel Gibson doing the honors.
Then it turns more interesting. By mistake, the kidnappers have taken, not Mifune's son, but that of his devoted chauffeur, who's been a lifelong playmate of Mifune's own boy. A call from the kidnappers confirms the accident but still demands the money.
Now what? Should Mifune go broke and reduce him and his family to a state of poverty? In order to save the life of a boy who isn't his own? Interesting dilemma. It's easy for the viewer to say, yes, pay the two dollars. But suppose we were in Mifune's shoes? Wouldn't we be in a state of trichotillomania, caught between Kant's hypothetical imperatives (what's in it for me?) and his categorical imperatives (what's the right thing to do?)? Someone brought that word, trichotillomania, to my attention and I just threw it in for the hell of it. It means a compulsion to pull one's hair out. I'd have had to wait two or three more lifetimes for such an opportunity.
Okay. I don't suppose it's necessary to spell out what Mifune decides. He gulps and eats it.
That's the first third of the movie, and it's not uninteresting. But then the pace picks up immediately. The miscreants are really clever and manage to outwit the police during the exchange of money and child. But the cops are no dopes either, and we get a rather longish story of their tracking the criminal. It reminded me less of the kind of detective work we see in the kinds of movies sometimes called "noirs," with Humphrey Bogart or Clint Eastwood on the trail, than it did of "Day of the Jackal," made with a European cast and crew. And maybe Fritz Lang's "M".
Nice scenes aboard one of the famous Bullet Trains. The tempo drops a bit when the now-busted Mifune drops from sight and the police begin trailing the chief suspect. There's a lot of slinking around in sleazy juke joints and junkie alleys and at times I was a little lost about just what was going on. I had to wait for the police report to bring me up to date.
The ending, although dramatic enough, was something of a let-down too. I was waiting for the malefactor to turn out to be Mifune's estranged younger brother or something. It had been pointed out more than once that the motive was not just pecuniary but a personal desire to torment Mifune. Instead, though, it was resolved as a matter of complex status envy, with a stranger on the other end.
I suppose, though, that that's what the title is meant to reflect -- the difference between the enormously wealthy and the druggies and burn-outs on the louche streets. The symbolism, if that's what it is, is realized concretely in the distinction between Mifune's mansion high on a hill and the shabby apartment of the kidnapper below, stifling in the heat and industrial smog.
Kurosawa admitted that he didn't provide many answers in his movies but that the same question seemed to run through his work: Why can't people be happy? He was in a good position to ask, since he evidently suffered from a major mood disorder.
This one will keep you in your seat with your eyes open. It's anything but artsy. What with the overwrought style of acting -- the pacing, the gritting of teeth, the outraged shouting, the sly sneaking about on crowded streets -- this particular atmosphere practically crackles with tension.
The opening third introduces us to Toshiro Mifune, the self-made millionaire, who has secretly borrowed all the money he can to buy a controlling interest in National Shoes so that he can make quality products. Naturally the Board of Directors want to make junk shoes and turn a profit -- period. Mifune is not an especially generous or likable guy. He's honest and fair but gruff with his family and employees.
Then -- chaos. Some kidnappers have taken his six-year-old son and are demanding 30M yen, which is to say everything that Mifune owns or has borrowed. So far the usual kidnap-for-ransom formula is followed: put the money in unmarked bills in two satchels, don't contact the police, wait for further instructions, and so forth. Mifune immediately agrees but, as is also part of the formula, he contacts the police who sneak into his house and record the calls he gets from the evildoers. We've seen this before, of course, will Glenn Ford or Mel Gibson doing the honors.
Then it turns more interesting. By mistake, the kidnappers have taken, not Mifune's son, but that of his devoted chauffeur, who's been a lifelong playmate of Mifune's own boy. A call from the kidnappers confirms the accident but still demands the money.
Now what? Should Mifune go broke and reduce him and his family to a state of poverty? In order to save the life of a boy who isn't his own? Interesting dilemma. It's easy for the viewer to say, yes, pay the two dollars. But suppose we were in Mifune's shoes? Wouldn't we be in a state of trichotillomania, caught between Kant's hypothetical imperatives (what's in it for me?) and his categorical imperatives (what's the right thing to do?)? Someone brought that word, trichotillomania, to my attention and I just threw it in for the hell of it. It means a compulsion to pull one's hair out. I'd have had to wait two or three more lifetimes for such an opportunity.
Okay. I don't suppose it's necessary to spell out what Mifune decides. He gulps and eats it.
That's the first third of the movie, and it's not uninteresting. But then the pace picks up immediately. The miscreants are really clever and manage to outwit the police during the exchange of money and child. But the cops are no dopes either, and we get a rather longish story of their tracking the criminal. It reminded me less of the kind of detective work we see in the kinds of movies sometimes called "noirs," with Humphrey Bogart or Clint Eastwood on the trail, than it did of "Day of the Jackal," made with a European cast and crew. And maybe Fritz Lang's "M".
Nice scenes aboard one of the famous Bullet Trains. The tempo drops a bit when the now-busted Mifune drops from sight and the police begin trailing the chief suspect. There's a lot of slinking around in sleazy juke joints and junkie alleys and at times I was a little lost about just what was going on. I had to wait for the police report to bring me up to date.
The ending, although dramatic enough, was something of a let-down too. I was waiting for the malefactor to turn out to be Mifune's estranged younger brother or something. It had been pointed out more than once that the motive was not just pecuniary but a personal desire to torment Mifune. Instead, though, it was resolved as a matter of complex status envy, with a stranger on the other end.
I suppose, though, that that's what the title is meant to reflect -- the difference between the enormously wealthy and the druggies and burn-outs on the louche streets. The symbolism, if that's what it is, is realized concretely in the distinction between Mifune's mansion high on a hill and the shabby apartment of the kidnapper below, stifling in the heat and industrial smog.
Kurosawa admitted that he didn't provide many answers in his movies but that the same question seemed to run through his work: Why can't people be happy? He was in a good position to ask, since he evidently suffered from a major mood disorder.