High and Low (1963 film)

High and Low
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay by	Ryūzō Kikushima Hideo Oguni Eijiro Hisaita Akira Kurosawa[1]
Based on	King's Ransom by Evan Hunter
Produced by	Ryūzō Kikushima Tomoyuki Tanaka
Starring	Toshiro Mifune Tatsuya Nakadai Kyōko Kagawa Tatsuya Mihashi Yutaka Sada
Cinematography	Asakazu Nakai Takao Saito[1]
Edited by	Akira Kurosawa[1]
Music by	Masaru Sato[1]
Production companies	Kurosawa Films Toho[1]
Release date	1 March 1963 (1963-03-01) (Japan)
Running time	143 minutes[1]
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Budget	¥230 million[2]
Box office	¥460.2 million[3]

High and Low (Japanese: 天国と地獄, Hepburn: Tengoku to Jigoku, literally "Heaven and Hell") is a 1963 Japanese police procedural crime film directed and edited by Akira Kurosawa and written by Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijiro Hisaita, and Ryūzō Kikushima. The film is loosely based on the 1959 novel King's Ransom by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter). It follows the story of a board member for a Japanese company who is forced to make a decision between using a vast amount of borrowed wealth to gain executive control and helping his employee by lending him the money to free his child from kidnappers. The film stars Toshiro Mifune as the wealthy board member Kingo Gondo, and Tatsuya Nakadai as Inspector Tokura, the man charged with solving the kidnapping case.

Production began in 1962 at Toho Studios. Shot mostly on location at Yokohama, and on set at Toho, filming lasted from 2 September to 30 January 1963. The film has been regarded as embodying a revitalised post-War Japan in anticipation of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, particularly with the use of the Kodama express train. Post-production took just under a month, after positive test-screenings in mid-February it received a wide distribution.

Released in Japan on 1 March 1963, High and Low received positive reviews both in Japan and abroad. With a budget of ¥230 million, it was the largest budget Kurosawa had worked with at the time and became the highest grossing film at the domestic box office that year. It was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globe Awards for 1964. It has since become highly appraised and is considered influential on the police procedural subgenre. Numerous remakes and reinterpretations have been made, both within Japan and internationally.

A wealthy executive named Kingo Gondo is in a struggle to gain control of a company called National Shoes. One faction wants the company to make cheap, low-quality shoes for the impulse market as opposed to the sturdy and high-quality shoes the company is currently known for. Gondo believes that the long-term future of the company will be best served by well-made shoes with modern styling, though this plan is unpopular because it means lower profits in the short term. He has secretly set up a leveraged buyout to gain control of the company, mortgaging all he has.

Just as he is about to put his plan into action, he receives a phone call from someone claiming to have kidnapped his son, Jun. Gondo is prepared to pay the ransom, but the call is dismissed as a prank when Jun comes in from playing outside. However, Jun's playmate, Shinichi, the child of Gondo's chauffeur, is missing. The kidnappers mistakenly abducted him instead.

In another phone call, the kidnapper reveals that he has discovered his mistake but still demands the same ransom. Gondo is now forced to make a decision about whether to pay the ransom to save the child or complete the buyout. After a long night of contemplation Gondo announces that he will not pay the ransom, explaining that doing so would not only mean the loss of his position in the company, but cause him to go into debt and throw the futures of his wife and son into jeopardy. His plans are weakened when his top aide lets the "cheap shoes" faction know about the kidnapping in return for a promotion should they take over. Finally, after continuous pleading from the chauffeur and under pressure from his wife, Gondo decides to pay the ransom. Following the kidnapper's instructions, the money is put into two small briefcases and thrown out from a moving train; Shinichi is found unharmed.

Gondo is forced out of the company and his creditors demand the collateral in lieu of the debt. The story is widely reported however, making Gondo a hero, while the National Shoe Company is vilified and boycotted. Meanwhile, the police eventually find the hideout where Shinichi was kept prisoner. The bodies of the kidnapper's two accomplices are found there, killed by an overdose of heroin. The police surmise that the kidnapper engineered their deaths by supplying them with uncut drugs. Further clues lead to the identity of the kidnapper, a medical intern at a nearby hospital, but there is no hard evidence linking him to the accomplices' murders.

The police lay a trap by first planting a false story in the newspapers implying that the accomplices are still alive, and then forging a note from them demanding more drugs. The kidnapper is then apprehended in the act of trying to supply another lethal dose of uncut heroin to his accomplices, after testing the strength on a drug addict who overdoses and dies. Most of the ransom money is recovered, but too late to save Gondo's property from auction. With the kidnapper facing a death sentence, he requests to see Gondo while in prison and Gondo finally meets him face to face. Gondo has gone to work for a rival shoe company, earning less money but enjoying a free hand in running it. The kidnapper at first feigns no regrets for his actions. As he reveals that envy from seeing Gondo's house on the hill every day led him to conceive of the crime, his emotions gradually gain control over him and he ends up breaking down emotionally before Gondo after finally facing his failure.

• Kōji Mitsui as reporter
• Minoru Chiaki as reporter
• Eijirō Tōno as factory worker
• Kamatari Fujiwara as incineration worker
• Masao Shimizu as prison director
• Kyū Sazanka as creditor
• Akira Nagoya as Yamamoto
• Kō Nishimura as creditor
• Jun Hamamura as creditor
• Ikio Sawamura as trolley man
• Kin Sugai as addict
• Masao Oda as executor
• Gen Shimizu as chief physician

High and Low was filmed at Toho Studios and on location in Yokohama.^[1] The film foregrounds the modern infrastructure of the economic miracle years and the run-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, including rapid rail lines and the proliferation of personal automobiles.^[4] Based on McBain's novel King's Ransom, Toho Studios purchased the rights to produce the film version of the book in the summer of 1961 for $5000.^[5]

Preproduction began on 20 July 1962 when Kurosawa began to cast for characters that he hadn't already planned to cast. Having appeared in the 1962 film My Daughter and I directed by Kurosawa's former assistant Hiromichi Horikawa, the decision to cast Tsutomu Yamazaki as the kidnapper may have been at Horikawa's suggestion. During the audition Yamazaki recalled feeling anxious and nauseous, calming down only after he began exchanging lines with Kurosawa.^[6] The role launched him to acting success, appearing in two more of Kurosawa's films (Red Beard, and Kagemusha) and starring in the popular 1970s jidaigeki television drama Hissatsu Shiokinin.^[7] Kurosawa also included cameos by many of his previous collaborators.^[8]

Kurosawa co-wrote the screenplay with Hideo Oguni, Eijiro Hisaita, and Ryūzō Kikushima. The story was written faithfully to McBain's novel, but contains significant differences, most especially in the ending wherein Kurosawa's ambivalent note contrasts McBain's optimistic embrace of his main character and his wealth. Unlike the novel too, Gondo does not catch the kidnapper himself.^[9]

He later said after the release of his film Red Beard that he wrote High and Low because a friend of his had their son kidnapped.^[10] Kurosawa was not particularly impressed with the writing of McBain's novel, but was apparently struck by the concept of such a kidnapping. Despite being shocked at the brazenness and cruelty of the crime, he felt that his criminal deserved a sympathy in tandem with the sadistic impulses he was subjected to.^[11]

The script originally ended with Inspector Tokura and Gondo having a conversation before Kurosawa changed his opinion in the edit.^[12]

Gondo's home overlooking Yokohama is in fact two different sets. One is filmed on location, overlooking the city. The night scenes showing the same location and view were filmed with a miniature display outside the window as the location set did not photograph the outside well enough at night. The scenes with the curtains drawn were filmed at Toho Studios.^[13] The set itself was a room with an open wall, with the camera rarely entering.

An additional, large, set was made for the original final scene.^[14]

Filming began on 2 September 1962 and began with the film's first act. Many of the takes shot during the film's first half were ten minutes long, and may have been longer if the capacity of the cameras' magazines were larger. The main body of the first half was filmed at Toho Studios.^[15]

The kidnapping exchange scene wherein money is dropped through the open window of a Kodama express train required nine cameras to be used in the shoot. Due to budgetary restrictions on the reservation of the express train, the scene could only be done in one take. The scene is shot almost entirely with hand-held cameras. All the camermen at Toho were required to shoot the film simultaneously, which led to all other film productions being shut down for a day. A camera was positioned under the bridge where the money drop took place, during the sequence a camera following one of the detectives on the train didn't work.^[16][15] While preparing for this scene, the crew made numerous enquiries to Japanese National Railways; unaware of the reason for their questions one official eventually got suspicious and questioned their intentions. The train was hired and the scene was shot while the train was running along the Tōkaidō Line. Reportedly the actors rehearsed the scene on-set for a week before the one take.^[17] According to Teruyo Nogami, script supervisor on many of Kurosawa's films, claims that Kurosawa ordered the destruction of a private home because it was blocking the kidnapper actor's face are exaggerated. Instead a blue sheet was used to disguise alterations made to the second floor of a nearby building, a job conceived and executed just a day before filming took place.^[18]

In the beginning of 1963 the Yokohama exteriors were filmed, but the cold January weather made it difficult to act convincingly as though it were summer. During a conversation scene between actors Isao Kimura and Takeshi Kato Kurosawa dyed the nearby river with black paint and poured dirt into it to make the environment filthier.^[19]

During the final scene, Yamazaki burnt his hands on the wire mesh from the heat of the lighting.^[7]

The film is shot using CinemaScope, a widescreen filming system. Long-distance lenses were used, particularly during the first half of the film. FIlming ended on 30 January 1963.^[20]

The use of multiple cameras simultaneously during the film's first half meant that a ten minute scene would have a corresponding hour of footage to cut between.^[21]

Mid-way through the film, Kurosawa employs colour for the first time in any of his films. Using a trail of pink smoke in a pair of shots that propel the investigation, the moment acts as a singularising pivot around which the investigation is pursued.^[22] At this point Kurosawa felt that he and his crew were still too unfamiliar with the use of colour in film, and so decided to continue shooting films in black and white.^[23]

The original script ending was changed when Kurosawa noted the performance of Yamazaki as being especially powerful, the original final scene contained a reflective conversation between Mifune and Nakadai. Although the crew spent two weeks filming the scene, Kurosawa ultimately cut it.^[24][12] The film was test-screened in mid-February.^[20] The final cut is 3,924 metres of film in length.^[25]

Scored by Masaru Sato, this was the eighth film he worked on with Akira Kurosawa, the film includes stock music from The H-Man, the music of which was also produced by Sato.^[26]

During the scene wherein the kidnapper is first seen by the audience, Schubert's Trout Quintet can be heard playing on the radio.^[27] When the police are in pursuit of the kidnapper, the Neapolitan song 'O sole mio is played.

In his analysis of intertextuality, scholar and acquaintance of Kurosawa Donald Richie notes the oppositional extremity of the original title Tengoku to Jigoku, and underlines that by comparing Yokohama to Dante's Divine Comedy. In this comparison Mifune's Gondo takes on the role of Dante himself, with the head detectives fulfilling the role of the angels, demi-gods, and Virgil. He writes that it is "the most black and white of all of Kurosawa's films because its eventual ambiguity is not one of character."^[28] He concludes in his moral analysis of the film that good and evil are made to coincide and made equal in their shared identity, that in realising themselves both Gondo and Takeuchi are offending the other. Stuart Galbraith also compares the film to Dante, noting also that while Gondo's house looks down on the people below, Kurosawa conducts a 'hell' in Yokohama "that is, in part at least, seductive."^[29] He proposes that Gondo's nouveau riche background and moral compass match Kurosawa and Mifune's own personalities.

Stephen Prince notes in his study of Kurosawa's filmography a dialectical enquiry of perspective running through the film. He underscores this by focusing on the blocking of Kurosawa's characters and the use of modern technology that works to conceal identity. The narrative bifurcation that occurs between the wealthy Gondo's home and the geographical shift down the hill into the shantytown below it during the second half structures Kurosawa's framing of characters' decisions and moral perspectives.^[30] When Gondo and the kidnapper meet in the film's final scene, "the existence and structure of class relations, is veiled, mystified to the sight of both an executive living at the heights of the society and a criminal who is aware of profoundly unequal standards of living ... It is the image of Gondo's house, not who he is personally, that triggers the crime".^[31]

Film scholar James Goodwin views the narrative's investigative structure to be an interrogation of social divisions and the nature of power on the human spirit. He compares the third act's showdown in the unrecovered slum with the sump in Drunken Angel and the bombed out factories in The Bad Sleep Well as functional representations in the environment of the social harm of executive power. Gondo's heroic actions as the protagonist are questioned by his similarity to the kidnapper. Similarly, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto views this sense of bifurcated identity to present the film as an embodiment of urban anxiety during post-War recovery.^[32] New train lines were being built, the urban poor were being expelled from the cities, and the "emergence of a new urban topography meant that the old map of Tokyo was no longer useful."^[33] The spatial reorganisation occurring in Yokohama is thus an interpretative act in the investigation which forms part of the characters' subjectivity.^[34] He concludes that it does not fully reflect a renewed sense of nationhood, however, and considers its class commentary "reactionary".^[35]

Philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote of High and Low in his work Cinema 1: The Movement Image, that the film demonstrates the situation-action paradigm in its structure. That is, the second half is a "senseless, brutal action" from the confined and theatrical space of its situational first half. To Deleuze, this movement from situation to action represents an expansion of space which sees the exploration and exposition of 'heaven and hell';^[36] at the same time the Kurosawan hero crosses through that space laterally. The process of the situation-action paradigm in High and Low represents a mutual agreement across the class divide.^[36]

High and Low was released in Japan on 1 March 1963.^[1] During the production of The Bad Sleep Well, Kurosawa had been approached to direct a documentary of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, while initially interested, by the release of High and Low the Games were just a year and a half away and the budget his staff submitted to the Organising Committee and Toho was considered excessive. His interest waned and he officially backed out three weeks into the theatrical release of High and Low on 21 March.^[37] The Tokyo Olympiad would eventually be directed by Kon Ichikawa and have a similar budget and crew that Kurosawa had asked for initially.

Upon the film's release in Japan people called the Kurosawa household and threatened to kidnap his daughter. As a precaution she was driven to and from school everyday and grounded in order to prevent such a potential kidnapping.^[38]

In August of the same year the film was entered into the Venice Film Festival, being nominated for the Golden Lion even though it would not see a general release in Italy for a few years afterwards. The film was released by Toho International with English subtitles in the United States on 26 November 1963. Debuting in Toho Cinema, New York, the film acquired a wider, though modest, distribution through Walter Reade–Sterling.^[1][26] It received a wider release in Europe from 1967 onwards, premiering in the UK in April and Spain in July; but not in France until 1976.

The film was re-released in the USA, first on a new 35mm print in 1986, and then again in 2002.

In Japan, a DVD was released and distributed by Toho directly in 2010, and again in February 2015, with Blu-Ray and 4K releases following in May 2023.^[39][40]

A VHS version of the film was released in 1988 by Pacific Arts Video. Another VHS was released by Home Vision Cinema on 6 June 2000.^[41]

The Criterion Collection released the film on DVD on 14 October 1998 and again with updated picture and sound quality on 22 July 2008. A Blu-Ray version was released on 26 July 2011. Included were interviews with Tsutomu Yamazaki and Toshiro Mifune, an audio commentary by Stephen Prince, and a 37-minute documentary detailing the production of the film.^[42][43] The BFI released a DVD of the film on 28 March 2005 (taken from an older transfer), with a Blu-Ray to be released on 21 January 2025.^[44] In addition to an individual release, both the BFI and Criterion released High and Low together with other Kurosawa films in box sets.

The film was a box office success in Japan, garnering ¥460.2 million in ticket sales and becoming the highest grossing domestic film that year.^[17][45][20] The Assassination of JFK during the film's opening week at the Toho Cinema in New York dampened ticket sales. By the end of its eight week run in that cinema alone, it had generated more than $46,800 total in box office returns. Beginning in its fifth week, the penultimate week of December in 1963, it started to play in different cinemas across New York.^[46] The critical and commercial success of Kurosawa's films during the 1960s caused 20th Century Fox to approach Kurosawa with an offer to direct the Japanese half of the film Tora! Tora! Tora!, a film about the beginning of the American-Japanese battles of the Pacific Theatre.^[47]

The film was re-released in the USA in 2002 as part of the Kurosawa & Mifune festival; a multi-title release that in total accrued $561,692.^[48]

Contemporary reviews of the film achieved a generally positive consensus. Most American reviewers found the formal style captivating but did not think the source content was worthy of the art.^[49] The New York Times declared it to be "one of the best detecting thrillers ever filmed," going on to commend the performance of Mifune and Nakadai and finally commenting, "Mr. Kurosawa has composed a remarkable movie mosaic, both spine-tingling and compassionate".^[50] Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic after questioning why Kurosawa wanted to make High and Low, wrote "To say all this is not, I hope, to discourage the reader from seeing this film. Very much the reverse. Two hours and twenty three minutes of fine entertainment are not a commonplace achievement." He commends Kurosawa and every person who worked on the film for executing an excellent detective thriller.^[51] However Sight and Sound, in their coverage of the Venice Film Festival, dismissed the film as "turgid and disappointing".^[52] Upon release in the United States, some critics questioned whether investigative techniques such as handwriting profiling and voiceprint analysis were possible in Japan at the time.^[12]

Prior to a 1986 American re-release of the film, The Washington Post wrote that it didn't count among Kurosawa's masterpieces, but that "High and Low is, in a way, the companion piece to Throne of Blood – it's Macbeth, if Macbeth had married better." He compares it favourably with Shakespeare, commenting on its symbolic and formal elements that are reminiscent of his plays.^[53]

Scott Tobias of The AV Club commented on the film's split nature, seeing it as split in half between the indoor tension of negotiation at the beginning, and the race-against-time of the investigation to find the kidnapper. He praises Kurosawa for turning the "mundane follow-through of police work into the stuff of white-knuckle suspense."^[54] David Parkinson writing for Empire in 2006 gave it four out of five stars, commenting on the film's use of "deceptive appearance" to illustrate that "all men are essentially equal and the only thing that really separates them are the choices they make in the depths of a crisis."^[55]

Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker."^[56]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, High and Low has an approval rating of 96% based on 24 reviews, with an average score of 8/10.^[57] In 2009 the film was voted at No. 13 on the list of The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.^[58]

Venice Film Festival (1963)

• Nominated – Golden Lion – Akira Kurosawa

Mainichi Film Award (1963)

• Winner – Best Film
• Winner – Best Screenplay – Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijirô Hisaita, Ryûzô Kikushima

Golden Globe Awards (1964)

• Nominated – Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film^[59]

The film is often considered among Kurosawa's greatest works despite failing to achieve the same level of notoriety as Rashomon or Seven Samurai. Film scholar Audie Bock appraised High and Low as the last of Kurosawa's transcendent humanistic dramas, believing his subsequent films to lack the same moral power.^[60] The film has been compared to Kurosawa's earlier police procedural Stray Dog for its moral themes and depiction of contemporary Japan during midsummer in the investigation of a crime.^[61][62]

When asked in 1975 whether it was correct to view the film as being anti-capitalist, Kurosawa responded:

"Well, I did not want to say so formally. I always have many issues about which I am angry, including capitalism. Although I don't intend explicitly to put my feelings and principles into films, these angers slowly seep through. They naturally penetrate my filmmaking."^[63][64]

Tsutomu Yamazaki, viewing the film nearly 30 years after its release at the Sydney Film Festival, still considered the film "fresh and interesting", but cringed on seeing his own acting. Meanwhile Yutaka Sada considered it his best performance in all of Kurosawa's films.^[65] This was the last of Kurosawa's films to feature the actor Minoru Chiaki.

Reportedly after the film's release, the number of kidnappings in Japan increased slightly. Kurosawa, in emphasising the lenient sentencing of Japanese kidnapping law, had intended to inspire tougher sentences; but was instead blamed for their increase.^[66] High and Low is said to have been partially responsible for reform of the Penal Code in 1964.^[67]

In an interview with IndieWire, Bong Joon-ho confirmed that the layout of the house as well as the themes of class disparity in Parasite were directly inspired by High and Low.^[68] High and Low has been viewed as influential on the genre of police procedurals, including Bong's Memories of Murder and David Fincher's Zodiac.^[61] Additionally, the asylum set design and a deleted scene containing the Joker from The Batman was revealed by the production designer to have taken inspiration from High and Low. Director Matt Reeves had previously cited Kurosawa as one of his filmmaking heroes.^[69] American director and actor Chris Weitz named High and Low his favourite Kurosawa film, stating that he's "drawn a lot from [it]".^[70]

The Indian film Inkaar has been described as a Bollywood reproduction of the film.^[71]

The film was adapted for Japanese TV in 2007 by Yasuo Tsuruhashi, in the series the location was changed from Yokohama to Otaru, Hokkaido.^[61]

The story for the 2023 miniseries Full Circle was inspired by High and Low.^[72]

Apple Original Films announced on 8th February 2024, via X, that Spike Lee will be directing a reinterpretation entitled Highest 2 Lowest, with Denzel Washington, Ice Spice, ASAP Rocky, and Jeffrey Wright starring. In collaboration with A24, filming started in March and wrapped on 3 June, set to be released in the spring of 2025.^{[73][74][75][76]}

• Cinema of Japan
• List of Japanese films of 1963
• List of works by Akira Kurosawa

• High and Low (in Japanese) at the Japanese Movie Database
• High and Low at IMDb
• High and Low at the TCM Movie Database
• High and Low at Box Office Mojo
• High and Low at Rotten Tomatoes
• High and Low an essay by Chuck Stephens at the Criterion Collection
• High and Low: Between Heaven and Hell an essay by Geoffrey O'Brien at the Criterion Collection
• Variety. December Issues, 1963 at Media History Digital Library
• Variety. January Issues, 1964 at Media History Digital Library