Kurosawa's Tense Noir Masterpiece Is Also A Potent Reminder of the Cost of WW2

Despite the German Expressionist influence on the genre, the roots of film noir are undoubtedly American — a morally introspective and nationally cynical mirror to the traditional western. As a whole, it’s a movement born out of an era defined by the Great Depression and the horror of World War 2: what felt like an insurmountable period of turmoil and moral rot began seeping into the celluloid unconsciously. However, just because film noir was given form by Hollywood directors, doesn’t mean the movement stayed in America.

On the contrary, it expanded out across the globe, giving audiences classic noirs from Great Britain, France, and even Japan, a nation reeling from its own unique role during World War 2. Just like Hollywood, Japan was reckoning with its national contradictions on-screen, and one classic noir in particular (directed by one of the most beloved filmmakers of all-time) is perhaps the best window into the psychological, social, and economic conditions of the nation at that time.

How Was High and Low Initially Received?

An adaptation of King’s Ransom by Ed McBain, High and Low is a sort of culmination of a series of smaller-scale film noirs Kurosawa did throughout his career (the others being Drunken Angel, Stray Dog, and The Bad Sleep Well). While those films are mostly situated around a handful of characters, High and Low in contrast is a sprawling epic, a domestic melodrama that blossoms into a full-throttle police procedural that spans across Yokohama, Japan. Like those other three ventures into film noir, High and Low stars Toshiro Mifune in the lead, a lifelong collaborator of Kurosawa’s (their working relationship can ironically be likened to the bond between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, who just reunited to remake this very movie).

Unlike some of the more action-oriented thrillers in the genre, High and Low spends a lot of its time dialing in on the moral anguish of Kingo Gondo, a Japanese businessman planning to buy out majority control in the shoe company he works for, when he suddenly becomes the target of an aggrieved kidnapper who has accidentally taken the son of his chauffeur as part of a ransom plot. Shockingly enough, Kurosawa revealed later in his career that he chose to adapt the novel in part because his son’s friend had been kidnapped years earlier, although despite the extremity of the crime in the book he wanted to explore the desperation that would drive someone to such an act.

Even though High and Low is cited as one of the best films of Kurosawa’s career and one of the best crime thrillers of all-time, its contemporary reception wasn’t as overwhelmingly celebrated. The movie was met with mostly positive reception, particularly aimed at its technical craftsmanship, but there were many who expressed bewilderment that Kurosawa would spend his time adapting a paperback detective mystery in the first place. For lots of critics at the time, the movie was beneath him, seen as either thematically hollow or in conflict with its own dual nature — even the beloved French cinema magazine Cahiers du Cinema panned the movie initially during its Venice Film Festival premiere.

Why is High and Low Important To See Now?

Simply put, High and Low is one of the finest works of film noir ever made, and possibly the benchmark by which all other kidnapping films are measured by. It’s remarkably engaging from its melodramatic start to its existentially haunting finish, and that’s in no small part due to Kurosawa’s incredible proficiency for visual storytelling. The camera inhabits Gondo’s penthouse with a remarkable intimacy, so close to the proceedings that you almost feel cramped in with the police and the members of Gondo’s household. But the camera is just one part of the elaborate construction Kurosawa is showing us — his blocking is masterful, every movement within the frame relaying to the audience the connection each character has to the situation with utter clarity. You feel Aoki’s subservience to Gondo before you know he’s his chauffeur, you see the way the policemen literally bend towards Gondo’s wealth and status while obfuscating Aoki from the frame, and even if you don’t notice each moving piece, the full picture conveys the weight of how society bends towards the privileged.

And while the film’s potent depiction of class hierarchy is still universal, there’s also a cultural and period specificity to it that makes it a brilliant time capsule of post-war Japan. In the immediate aftermath of WW2 (during the American occupation of the country), Japan was forced to capitulate to the Allied demands and dissolve many of their key industries as punishment for their aggression during the war. However, in the late ‘50s, America reversed their position and loosened these restrictions, with Japan seizing the opportunity in what was referred to as their “economic miracle,” a return to the nation’s pre-war income. While seen as a reflection of Japan’s affluence and ingenuity, the “economic miracle” did not apply to everyone — because of the dissolution of crucial industries, a lot of the emphasis of reconstruction was placed on corporations at the expense of low-level employees and the unemployed, people who were left to toil in slums and shantytowns and wrestle with addiction and desperation.

When the police investigation at the heart of the film descends into Heroin Alley, and we get our first glimpse at how those not as fortunate as Gondo are forced to live, it’s both horrifically prescient and Kurosawa scrutinizing the economic dynamics of his own time, preserving a hierarchical injustice overlooked by people like Gondo, and like the cops trying desperately to return his precious money to him. Much in the same way that Gondo’s moral debate over paying the ransom brings him closer to heaven and hell, we also get to see what those ideas look like mapped out over the reality of a country’s economic inequality.

What New Features Does The High and Low 4K Release Have?

Criterion’s new 4K Blu-Ray release of the film comes with a host of new features all digging deeper into the legacy of Kurosawa and his masterpiece:

• New 4K digital restoration, with 4.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring Akira Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince
• Documentary on the making of High and Low, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
• Interviews with actors Toshiro Mifune and Tsutomu Yamazaki
• Trailers and teaser
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and an on-set account by Japanese film scholar Donald Richie

High and Low is available to purchase on 4K Blu-ray now.