High and Low

Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku), the highly influential domestic drama and police procedural from director Akira Kurosawa. 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.

Akira Kurosawa
Japan
1963
143 minutes
Black & White
2.35:1
Japanese
Spine #24

Special Features

Restored high-definition digital transfer, with original four-track surround sound, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
Audio commentary by Akira Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince
A thirty-seven-minute documentary on the making of High and Low, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
Rare interview with actor Toshiro Mifune from 1984
Interview with actor Tsutomu Yamazaki
Theatrical trailers from Japan and the U.S.
PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and (Blu-ray only) an on-set account by Japanese film-scholar Donald Richie

Cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang

Purchase Options

Blu-Ray 1 Disc $31.96 SRP: $39.95

DVD 2 Discs $31.96 SRP: $39.95

Collector's Sets

Collector's Set

AK 100: 25 Films by Kurosawa

DVD Box Set

25 Discs

$319.00

Out Of Print

Special Features

Restored high-definition digital transfer, with original four-track surround sound, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
Audio commentary by Akira Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince
A thirty-seven-minute documentary on the making of High and Low, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
Rare interview with actor Toshiro Mifune from 1984
Interview with actor Tsutomu Yamazaki
Theatrical trailers from Japan and the U.S.
PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and (Blu-ray only) an on-set account by Japanese film-scholar Donald Richie

Cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang

Cast & Credits

Cast

Toshiro Mifune: Kingo Gondo
Kyoko Kagawa: Reiko
Tatsuya Mihashi: Kawanishi
Tatsuya Nakadai: Inspector Tokuro
Yutaka Sada: Aoki
Takashi Shimura: Director
Susumu Fujita: Commissioner
Kenjiro Ishiyama: Detective Taguchi
Isao Kimura: Detective Arai
Takeshi Kato: Detective Nakao

Credits

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Producer: Tomoyuki Tanaka
Producer: Ryuzo Kikushima
Screenplay: Ryuzo Kikushima
Screenplay: Hideo Oguni
Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa
Cinematography: Asakazu Nakai
Production design: Yoshiro Muraki
Lighting: Ichiro Inohara
Sound: Hisahi Shimonaga
Music: Masaru Sato
Screenplay: Eijiro Hisaita
Cinematography: Takao Saito

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Explore

Akira Kurosawa

Writer, Director

Arguably the most celebrated Japanese filmmaker of all time, Akira Kurosawa had a career that spanned from the Second World War to the early nineties and that stands as a monument of artistic, entertainment, and personal achievement. His best-known films remain his samurai epics Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, but his intimate dramas, such as Ikiru and High and Low, are just as searing. The first serious phase of Kurosawa’s career came during the postwar era, with Drunken Angel and Stray Dog, gritty dramas about people on the margins of society that featured the first notable appearances by Toshiro Mifune, the director’s longtime leading man. Kurosawa would subsequently gain international fame with Rashomon, a breakthrough in nonlinear narrative and sumptuous visuals. Following a personal breakdown in the late sixties, Kurosawa rebounded by expanding his dark brand of humanism into new stylistic territory, with films such as Kagemusha and Ran, visionary, color, epic ruminations on modern man and nature.