XI. The 30 Films of Akira Kurosawa: Tengoku to jigoku (High and Low) [1963] (by Lewis Saul)

Ed note:  For the next several weeks, composer and film aficionado Lewis Saul has agreed to supply us with in-depth commentary about the films of Akira Kurosawa, now showing in an extended festival at the Film Forum. Even if you're unable to stop by the Forum, we think Lew's insights will deepen your appreciation of these important movies.

Tengoku to jigoku (High and Low) [1963]

PLAYING January 22nd at The Film Forum

This is Kurosawa's 22nd film. (Hey, neat: his 22nd playing on the 22nd!) ...

Based on King's Ransom by Ed McBain (except for the ending), Kurosawa transplanted the story to the Yokohama home of wealthy Kingo Gondo (Mifune), an executive director and production head who runs the factory of National Shoes. Gondo meets with three company executives (Kamiya, Director of Marketing [Jun Tazaki]; Ishimaru, Director of Design [Nobuo Nakamura] and Baba, Director of Sales and Operations [Yûnosuke Itô]). They ask Gondo to join them in ousting the company's president, whose shoes and leadership are increasingly old-fashioned. They propose a new line of shoes much cheaper to produce and therefore more profitable. Gondo, who has spent most of his life at the company, is outraged by the shoddiness of the product they show him. As Gondo's assistant, Kawanishi (Tatsuya Mihashi), looks on, Gondo refuses to go along with the scheme, chastising the executives for their lack of integrity. Gondo throws them out, surprising Reiko (Kyoko Kagawa, five films with AK, all important roles), his wife. [Galbraith, p. 342]

And oh my, it just gets better and better from there! Galbraith's synopsis runs until p. 346, so there is definitely a lot to describe. However ...

First, I have to speak about the treatment given to this film by The Criterion Collection, my personal favorite choice in DVD companies. As of this writing, their most current release is Spine #515. This release is Spine #24, from 1998. Occasionally (as with Spine #2 [Shichinin no samurai {The Seven Samurai} |1954|, playing on January 29th and 30th]), Criterion has re-released the film, but has smartly retained the original spine number. We'll let you know all about Seven Samurai on January 27th, but I am here to tell you that this film has also been released twice by Criterion! This original 1998 release (left) indicates the exact same aspect ratio as the newer one (2:35:1) -- but that has to be the only similarity! This new release (2008) has been completely cleaned up and remastered, particularly the sound. It is an awesome experience to see this film (finally) the way its creator intended it to be seen.

Perhaps you are tired of hearing me proclaim every single Kurosawa film as a "masterpiece." Well, I didn't say so for Sugata II, for instance, but I would certainly repeat that praise for this film!

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Back to the synopsis ... in a constantly surprising screenplay, so much happens that defies conventional pigeonholing. And you can read that anywhere ...

So, on to Galbraith quoting a very nice story from the actor who plays the kidnapper, Tsutomu Yamazaki. If you don't recognize the name, perhaps you'll recognize the role that made him famous: Goro, the noodle-loving truck driver in Juzo Itami's 1985 masterpiece, Tampopo (Dandelion). Incidentally, if you're not familiar with Itami's work, not only do I highly recommend Tampopo (if you are among the few who have not seen it by now!), but I think he even equaled himself with some of his other work (he made a total of 10 films, a screenplay credit for each film!), although probably with less financial success. But film's like Minbo no onna (1992) (still disgracefully only available on VHS ~ one of the coolest films I've ever seen!); or Marusa no onna (A Taxing Woman) [1987] and its 1988 sequel are wonderful. His tragic death robbed us all of a major talent ... I hope to speak about him further in these pages at some later date -- he was one of my favorite filmmakers ... to Yamazaki via Galbraith:

"When I auditioned for the role, I had to sit in a waiting room all by myself and couldn't stop shaking. I heard a theory that the quantity of adrenaline that an actor secretes due to tension prior to a performance is more than the fatal dose for a normal person. (I'm not sure whether this is true or not.) Anyway, I was really tense and felt like vomiting that day. To be honest, I was too shy to look into anybody's eyes in those days. If this big director looks at me, I'll die, I thought. I shouldn't have come here. Should I leave without auditioning? When he finally called me in, he asked, 'Did you learn your lines?' There were five or six of his main crew around him. I couldn't look up. 'Yes,' I said, keeping my head down. 'Okay, let's get started! I'll be your reading partner. Do it as you like.' Oh my God, I thought! It's getting worse -- now he's my reading partner. I can't not look at him. At the other end of the five-foot table, Mr. Kurosawa slowly took off his glasses and sat down. My eyes must have been ugly and impure, but his own eyes slowly and warmly looked back. He was prompting me in a non-judgmental manner. Naturally, my tension decreased. For the first time, I was able to look into someone's eyes while I read my lines . . . . My problem was solved, and at the same time I passed the audition. I'll never forget his soft eyes. I did it thanks to them." [pp. 352-3]

Here are a few of my favorite things (go ahead, sing along, you know you want to ['cept sing the 'Trane version, please] ...

If you've been reading my posts, I hope you've noticed the many fine books and other writings of real Kurosawa scholars that I have recommended. Galbraith (though out of print), Richie, the autobiography, and Goodwin.

Today's new book recommend is
Stephen Prince,'s "The Warrior's Camera."

In these posts, most of my quotes come from Galbraith, but if I could find this excellent volume in my messy studio, I'd peruse it right about now...

However -- Mr. Prince's new (2008) commentary on the Criterion DVD is just so excellent, I find myself going back through this film one more time to give you some of Mr. Prince's splendid ideas. These bullet points end with [SP] ...

The way Mifune tears up the shoe is incredible. Geoffrey O'Brien in an essay contained in the booklet which accompanies the new Criterion DVD writes: "The scene at once invokes and parodies the string of samurai roles that Mifune had just played for Kurosawa."

Another brilliant paragraph: "High and Low in a sense is a film with no center, or a film whose center is everywhere: it is concerned with mapping all the human contacts, no matter how tiny or apparently insignificant, that fall within its scope ..."

And finally, the last two paragraphs are must-reading, concerning the "devastating (and much analyzed) [final] confrontation between Gondo and Takeuchi ..." Congralutations, Mr. O'Brien, on an incredible essay!

• Jun (Toshio Egi) who was 11 years old when he made this film (and was born the same year as me!) later joined a boy band, Four Leaves. The chauffeur's son, Shinichi (Masahiko Shimazu), also 11, was a really terrific child actor. Of the eight films he acted in between ages six and 11, four of them were for Ozu -- including the really terrific performance as Isamu in Ohayô (Good Morning) [1959].
• As the boys play "sheriff and bandit" with their toy guns, Gondo instructs Jun -- who is now playing the bandit; the kids have switched roles, an important fact -- to hide from the sheriff and "ambush him" to win the game. Reiko: "You both love blood sports!"
• Thirty million yen was $83,333 in 1963 dollars.
• The entire opening "living-room" sequence -- the first half the film, basically -- is truly spectacular. I suppose it had better be with a scenario which confines the actors to a single room (albeit, a rather large room!), which was actually a set built up as a stage. (Actually, there were two sets! The main set was used when no scenes of lower Yokohama were required; another set, in an entirely different location, was used when they wanted to show the city, shot through the windows of the home.) Kurosawa used two cameras -- one that dollied around at ground level more or less; and a second on a crane that unobtrusively rises up (especially when all the actors are standing) so that the wide-screen frame could accomodate everyone. [SP]
• Excellent example of the subtle crane shot: when Gondo tears up the cheap shoe. [SP]
• Kurosawa spends weeks and weeks on rehearsals -- with and without cameras and blocking, etc.
• Many of these initial scenes were filmed in long takes, some as long as 10 minutes. Although you will see cuts in all of these scenes, they are AK edits from the original "long" take! This became a frequent stylistic feature of Kurosawa's directing in the future. He felt he got the best performances that way, partially because the actors never knew which camera was filming them! [SP ]
• Modern audiences might have a tough time understanding this one: but in 1963, while the number of television sets in Japanese homes was around 80%, the number of air conditioners was so low that it did not rise above the x axis on a chart! And it is not just the kidnapper who complains about Gondo's luxury -- the long later scenes of the police procedural lovingly portrays a mass of determined detectives who are all sweating up a storm! A few of the big shots have electric fans (the Chief of Investigative Headquarters [Takashi Shimura] and the Head of Investigation Section [Susumu Fujita], but watch how most of the men are fanning themselves furiously; a few are vigorously shaking their shirts trying to create a breeze ... in short, Gondo's AC was indeed pretty unusually luxurious! [SP]
• One scene that stands out for me is this one: one of the cops and Aoki, the chauffeur (Yutaka Sada) are writing down the serial numbers of the ¥1,000 bills while Inspector Tokura (Tatsuya Nakadai) and Head Detective "Bos'n" Taguchi (Kenjiro Ishiyama) talk about how to fit the special tracing capsules into the ransom briefcases. Gondo -- who has been sitting quietly in the back of frame, in silhouette, all black -- suddenly rises up and offers his services to the policemen. It seems that when he was a beginning apprentice, shoemakers also made cases! Notice how Aoki and the cop are droning on in the background while writing down serial numbers, as the others converse ...
• The bullet train sequence itself could fill an entire post. Enough perhaps to state that Kurosawa used nine cameras -- filming a "no-mistakes possible" one-take shot on a real bullet train with extras and actors outside the train on the banks of the river, and actors playing cops taking 8mm films of the kidnappers, ducking down so they're not seen! The whole sequence is so extraordinary -- once you've seen it, you'll want to know more about how it was made!
• At 1:01:23 -- with 1:12:37 left in the film -- Shinichi is rescued. The reunion with Gondo is shot in extreme long-shot -- with the cops in the foreground. As Masahiko Shimazu screams and jumps on him and hugs him, screaming all the while -- it is so incredibly convincing that when Bos'n has to blow his nose into his handkerchief -- well, let's just say that yours truly has shed a tear or two watching this scene. Even for the **th time!
• Bet you didn't think that Mifune would disappear for just about the entire second half of the film? He does. (This is his next-to-last film with Kurosawa.)
• FADE TO BLACK. Two detectives -- Arai (Isao Kimura) and Nakao (Takeshi Katô) -- are checking out the phone booths down in the "Hell" section of Yokahama (the original title translation: "Heaven and Hell" is really much better) ...
• Kurosawa rarely used traditional composer's music -- he usually had his own composer try to imitate whatever kind of music he heard in his head for the scene ... but right here begins a section of Schubert's Trout Quintet, strings only...
• As the detectives look up at Gondo's house high on the hill, they comment on how it seems to "get to you" and then the camera pans downward and we see a scummy pond (see Yoidore tenshi [Drunken Angel] {1948}, playing January 23rd) ... far right of frame, we see an inverted figure, reflected in the pond ... cut, the inverted, reflected figure is larger. Big axial cut. Pan up and we see Ginjirô Takeuchi (Yamazaki) from the back, walking through the alleyways. The camera follows him into his apartment.
• The Schubert stops. The POV changes to inside the room as he opens the door. Kurosawa definitely fosters a claustrophobic feeling with nearly continual close-ups in this scene. The kidnapper reads his newspaper: "ALL POLICE UNITS MOBILIZED" -- he looks at his watch and turns on the radio.
• The radio announcer seems to sense what is happening: "If the kidnapper is out there listening ... we want to let him know that Gondo will have the last laugh."
• Suddenly, classical music pours out of the little radio: it is the Trout Quintet again, this time with piano and strings -- the same theme, orchestrated differently. Eventually, he turns off the radio.
• The police are reviewing the film footage from the train. They are determined to get Gondo his money back.
• Meanwhile, Aoki is screaming at his poor little boy because he feels so indebted towards Gondo, and so badly about him losing his fortune.
• As Tokura is telling Reiko of all the public sympathy the case has generated for Gondo, his "creditors" enter the house (they are probably yakuza, meaning Gondo has borrowed from some dangerous people!) ... Tokura and Bos'n leave in their car...
• A trumpet fanfare (which will repeat several times) introduces a dissolve to a large map of Yokohama on the wall of a large room in the police station.
• Arai and Nakao begin the presentation. As the camera pans up to them, you can barely see the faces of our two familiar Kurosawa-gumi, sitting side-by-side: Shimura, just inhaling on a cigarette and Fujita. As the detectives point on the map, both men have their backs turned to the camera ...
• There are ten flashback scenes which follows each detective's presentation:
• • FB#1: Repeat shot of Arai and Nakao checking phone booths;
  • FB#2: Where the phone call was made to the bullet train. We see the train and then pan down to the tobacco shop below where Takeuchi made the call;
  • FB#3: Two detectives walking along the coast with Shinichi's drawing in one of the cop's hands, as they try to figure out where he was taken.
  • FB#4: Two detectives investigating how he got the ether they used to subdue Shinichi -- walking in front of a row of smokestacks (over their narration that iron works were one of the industries that ordered ether).
  • FB#5: Two detectives speaking with the farmer who saw the car.
  • FB#6: Policeman pulling over a car suspected of being the kidnapper.
  • FB#7: Bunch of cops distributing the serial numbers to various merchants.
  • FB#8: The toll booth.
  • FB#9: Bos'n's rant. "Today, I met with the directors." He pauses and rubs his middle finger on his forehead, a gesture of some sort (does it mean the same thing there and then as it did and does here and now?) which he repeats several times in the film ... the flashback apparently occurs at the offices of National Shoes, as Bos'n interviews the three directors (notice the beautiful National Shoes 1963 poster!), who have nothing helpful to say. As Bos'n says later: "They would pin a medal on the kidnapper!" (Shimura and Fujita have to calm him down so he doesn't have a fit!)
  • FB#10: At the factory. A worker (Eijirô Tôno) praises Gondo and suggests that the only gripes or grudges would come from the front office!
• Arai is listening to a tape. He plays it for the others, and then rushes out to find a "trolley specialist."
• He finds the jolly Ikio Sawamura (six AK roles, most famously, as the amusing Hansuke in Yojimbo [1961], playing February 3rd) who immediately solves the mystery and sounds as if he could make his own sound effects record ...
• Gondo, mowing his sad little lawn ...
• "I peed over there." "We passed by this tunnel." So little Shinichi is telling his papa as Aoki drives all over the suspected area looking for clues. Meanwhile, Bos'n and his partner are looking for them. They make a left turn just as Aoki's car enters the frame.
• Check out the music cue (most unusual for Kurosawa -- a very unique cue -- it sounds like a guitar run through a Leslie amp, with repeating echoes of 16th notes!) when the boy is seen to have disappeared. Very short and brutal (scary) ... it also sounds again after the final "The End."
• This new print also has a new subtitle translation. They find Shinichi peering into the window of the villa. This line was not translated as such in the previous version: "Uncle and auntie are sleeping!" (Japanese children often call their elders "uncle" or "auntie.")
• The detective goes to look at the trolley, as he hears it passing by. Kurosawa moves in for an ECU on the little wheel which attaches the trolley to the electric line above. This small piece of metal helped solve a major crime!
• The first use of color ever in a Kurosawa film! It's short -- but very pink!
• The "junkie" scenes are pretty memorable. Beginning with their tail of Takeuchi at the waterfront, where we see a foreign couple walk by the camera;
• Good cop switches on the tail in the busy city. Good piano music.
• POV from inside the nightclub as Takeuchi enters. A very large black man to his left, with an American or European man sitting with a Japanese girl to the right...
• Immediately, the music pumps up a few notches as Takeuchi is looking to make his connection;
• She walks right in front of him, then quickly moves behind and looks at him through the bar's mirror; he turns and looks; she walks away and puts a coin in the jukebox to play a new song. Takeuchi and the girl dance, as the cops in Hawaiian shirts follow them on to the dance floor. The cops dance nearly motionless, seemingly embarrassed and probably hoping they don't ruin the bust;
• 2:05:03. So many young female junkies! A dealer pushes his way through the crowd, having no good news for any of the withdrawing, suffering drug addicts...
• As Takeuchi tries to enter the area, the music soundtrack is augmented with a bit of breathing-type noise -- very effective ... some of the girls push him away -- eventually he makes his way towards the sickest possible junkie in the crowd -- a girl who is scratching and clawing at the walls of the buildings. He approaches her, her reflection vivid in his dark sunglasses ...
• He whispers something to her, she immediately follows him and the cops come rushing after them. As Takeuchi escapes, they rush up to the room and find the girl dead, foaming at the mouth and eyes ...
• The cops (Tokura, et al.) in the car are stopped in the middle of the street looking at Takeuchi. Suddenly, he lifts his sunglasses up and stares at something -- the cops follow his stare. And finally, Kurosawa shows us what they are looking at!
• Takeuchi has spotted Gondo, doing some late-night window-shopping! He is looking in the window of a shoe store! Takeuchi asks him for a light, which Gondo gives him and then walks away. Takeuchi follows for a brief moment and then stops ...
• Tokura orders the driver to leave for the villa, just as a traffic cop comes up on a scooter to tell the cops to move along!
• Takeuchi tries to hail a cab without success. (This is in to let us know for sure that Tokura & Co. arrived at the villa before Takeuchi!)
• At the villa, we are looking at a radio through a gauzy surface of curtains. The announcer tells us it is 12:15 A.M. and it is time for some "Goodnight Music." Want to know the details about the song playing on the radio? I wanna sell a few DVD's here: check out Prince's excellent commentary! I learned a lot from it, especially here in this section, about stuff I never knew before! Note the beautiful axial cut backwards on the radio!
• Close-up as Takeuchi pops out of a bunch of flowers (still wearing his sunglasses), cautiously looking for signs of the police.
• The new 2-disc Criterion DVD is remarkable. On disc 1, new commentary by Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince; on disc 2, a 37-minute documentary on the making of this film; a rare video interview with Mifune; and a new video interview with Yamazaki. I've already mentioned O'Brien's brilliant essay. In addition, the booklet contains a thrilling on-set account by Donald Richie (who first had on-set privileges on Kurosawa's seventh film, Drunken Angel [1948]).
• There are 25 wipes in this film, all horizontal: seven left and 18 right.

Kurosawa XII