The Hidden Fortress

The Hidden Fortress (1958) is set in Japan during the civil wars. Two hungry and greedy peasants running from a battle come across a general. He has to move the gold of a defeated clan and its princess across enemy territory, and he takes the peasants along with the promise of a share. Its best known feature is the point of view. The story starts not with the general or the princess but with the two useless peasants, and we see events through them. The heroes are always at the edge and we are always below. George Lucas has said repeatedly that this structure fed directly into Star Wars; C-3PO and R2-D2 came from these two, as did the idea of telling great events through small characters. It was Kurosawa's first widescreen film. The framing is unusually deep and horizontal, and the contrast between crowded scenes and empty landscape is deliberately widened. Toshiro Mifune plays the general. Misa Uehara, playing the princess, barely smiles, and the character's anger is the most modern thing in the film. It runs 139 minutes. Good for: Kurosawa, adventure storytelling, and connections through film history. Less good for: the peasants' comedy repeats itself and becomes tiring. The pace sags in the middle, and the princess is kept away from the centre of her own story.