← Back to results
High and Low
天国と地獄
1963 142 min Japan 16+
★8.5
Drama, Crime, Thriller
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Trailers
EN
EN
Description
A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.
Budget:
$250,000
US Gross:
$46,808
Starring
Toshirô Mifune
Actor
Yutaka Sada
Actor
Tatsuya Nakadai
Actor
Awards
Golden Globe 1964
— Best International Feature Film
Venice Film Festival 1963
— Golden Lion
Key opinion
High and Low is widely acclaimed as a masterful blend of character-driven moral drama and procedural crime thriller. Critics and audiences alike praise its tight direction and its profound exploration of ethical dilemmas, though opinions on its pacing and genre shifts are occasionally divided.
| Acting | Toshirô Mifune delivers a powerful performance as a principled industrialist, anchoring the film's emotional intensity through his character's internal struggle. | |
| Direction | Kurosawa employs meticulous, precise direction that effectively balances the tense, static drama of the first half with the procedural rigor of the second. | |
| The film provides a compelling, nuanced critique of post-war Japanese class disparity and corporate greed without relying on simple moral binaries. | ||
| Screenplay | The screenplay masterfully adapts an American detective novel into a culturally resonant drama, successfully shifting from a claustrophobic moral dilemma to an expansive police procedural. | |
| Pacing | The film's deliberate, two-part structure splits audiences; some admire the meticulous, slow-burn tension of the first act, while others find the procedural shift or duration somewhat exhausting or dull. |