David Hast: Scott, have you seen The Hidden Fortress?
Scott Vander Werf:I just saw it recently and to my consternation, it's the first time I've seen this Akira Kurosawa film. I have seen so many of his movies. I think I've seen about 15 of his movies and many of them when I was in film school, many of them at different art house theaters and knowing that this was the basis for Star Wars, it's amazing to me that I haven't seen it and I loved it.
DH: It was the first time I'd ever seen it as well, and I loved it too. It is a great action-adventure film by Akira Kurosawa, who is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, many masterpieces, and definitely the best known Japanese director outside of Japan. He made several movies that are considered great cinema masterpieces, Rashomon, Ikuru, The Seven Samurai, some that have been remade by American and Western filmmakers like High and Low, which is a thriller that was recently remade by Spike Lee and Denzel Washington as Highest to Lowest. And Yojimbo, which is another one of his many samurai films, was remade by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars.
SVW: And he's also somebody who himself was very much influenced by Western, by John Ford and a variety of Western filmmakers as well. Which was kind of to his detriment in Japan.
DH: That's right. In Japan, he was not taken seriously for a big part of his, you know, the first half of his 50-year career because of that, because he was so kind of Western. He was nothing like Ozu and some of these other very Japanese directors. And he was quite influenced by the Westerns like John Ford, but then it goes back the other way. And then he influenced Westerns back. The Hidden Fortress is definitely one of those, which, not a Western, although many people have called Star Wars kind of like a western and outer space, but The Hidden Fortress is one of those that influenced, well it influenced Star Wars.
SVW: The very first Star Wars.
DH: I think The Hidden Fortress may be the best starter movie for someone who's never seen a Kurosawa. I mean, most of them are very accessible, particularly the action films, but The Hidden Fortress is a great place to start.
SVW: The thing is, is that it's got humor, a lot of humor throughout it, and it has great action sequences, and it's filmed beautifully.
DH: That's it too, it isn't just an action film, it's a great movie.And like many of his films, the lead actor in it is Toshiro Mufune, who, I think you can argue with me if you want, but I think he's the greatest actor in action movies ever. Name a better one. Who's more fun, just fun to watch?
SVW: Well, I don't think, actually I don't think in those terms. You know, terms of ranking people, he's great. And you know, we talked about John Ford, he's sort of like his John Wayne. The way that John Ford used John Wayne in so many different movies, maybe even more so because Maffuni is, he'sin the majority of his great movies fromsome of his earliest detective ones through Maffuni'selder years.
DH: Yeah. But Maffuni, you know, say, unlike John Wayne, can be very funny. know, John Wayne, I suppose, has a sense of humor, but Maffuni can be buffoonish and hilarious at times. And also, no stuntmen for Toshiro Mofuni. There's a great duel in this movie with two guys with swords. No, not swords. Spears. And you can tell it's Mofuni trained in the martial arts and he does his own stuff.
SVW: He’s in like the very first uh Kurosawa film I saw was Rashomon. He's in that one. He's in the Seven Samurai.He’s definitelya cinematic icon.
DH: Yeah. So let's summarize the basic idea in the story and maybe while we're doing that we can point out the obvious parallels to Star Wars, which George Lucas clearly said this movie was kind of where he got his main idea. So it's an epic adventure film. It's set in 16th century feudal Japan, has battles, duels, tragedy, humor, it has all kinds of stuff. It's told from the point of view of two peasants, these kind of foolish peasants, which what's the parallel in Star Wars?
SVW: It's R2D2 and CP30 [sic], the uh Android and the robot.
DH: Yeah, so these droids are wandering in the desert. That's exactly how Hidden Fortress starts.wandering. These guys have been. They went to the battle to try and pick up, you know, find goods and things, but they got thrown in prison and then they had to escape. And so then what else is going on?What do they admit?These two fools are stuck in this giant war that's going on. There's a powerful empire attacking a kingdom and there's awarrior princess.
SVW: Who's on the run.
DH: Who's on the runand she's helped by powerful comrades. The duel scene, think,isn't there a duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi? There is. With the laser, what are they called?
SVW: Lightsaber.
DH: Lightsaber, sorry, thank you.And they have to, you know, both fight the evil empire and protect the princess.
SVW: And the hidden fortress is a place that's nestled in the mountains thatToshiro Mufuni, who is a general serving the princess, he and the princess are hiding out there.And Mufuni leads the two peasants there because he realizes that he can use their greed for his own ends.
DH: Yeah, he's this, you know, he's the classic hero, know, like Western hero or samurai hero. He plays a general in this who will do anything to protect the princess. He has sacrificed his own sister who pretended…posed as the princess and was killed. We find that out in the beginning and Mofuni is this you know incredible warrior totally disciplined with an unchanging sense of order and right and wrong but he sees this opportunity they're on the run their army's been defeated they're stuck behind enemy linesand he sees that these peasants are kind of greedy fools so he leads them on
SVW: And the way he's able to do it is that they have a certain they have 300 pieces of gold.
DH: Yeah, right. And he lures them in andgets them to help carry the gold out, which is the wealth of the of the of the Empire of their kingdom, not the Empire.
SVW: Althoughyou can definitely see that the two peasantswere the modeling for R2 D2 and CP30 [sic]. But I'll also remembering Star Wars there's also sort of a Laurel and Hardy dynamic to those two characters And I'm wondering if that's also because the peasants in here maybe Kurosawa was looking back at some of the comedy duos of Hollywood like Laurel and Hardy and how they interact how they how they were always push-pull you knowin that dynamic there are they're like one moment. They're the best of friends in the next second. They're enemies
DH: Yeah, certainly. I mean, it's a whole other topic of discussion, but Kurosawa was certainly influenced by the visual-ness of the silent era. And we can stop comparing the two movies there. Lucas, you know, part of why Lucas used The Hidden Fortress not only was it a great plot, but he worshipped Kurosawa. You could ask George Lucas today, you know, who's a greater filmmaker? And he would instantly say, no, I've done a lot of cool stuff, but I'm not in that league. I mean, because this movie, while it is a highly entertaining action film, it's also brilliant filmmaking.
SVW: And actually George Lucasand Steven Spielberg were two people whomade sure that Kurosawa was, when he became a senior citizen, when he was an elder statesman in the 1980s, they made sure that Hollywood uh recognized Kurosawa as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
DH: Yeah, and I think some of those big name Western filmmakers of that generation helped him get the funding to do Ron and Kaga Musha, which were made in the80s and were very expensive epics.
SVW: Very expensive epics and unlike, say, The Hidden Fortress made in spectacular color. Yeah. But they were also, The Hidden Fortress has the distinction before The Hidden Fortress, all his movies were shot in 1.33 aspect ratio, the old aspect ratio that's almost square. The Hidden Fortress was his first widescreen picture in Toho scope, which was named after the Toho studios, the Japanese equivalent of CinemaScope. And boy, for a guy, first movie using widescreen, he uses it brilliantly, know, just uses every part of the screen.
SVW: And some like in the, in one of the very first sequences,there's a brilliant shot and action sequence where the two peasants are looking at something that we cannot see. And the next moment, a samurai stumbles into the frame. He's already been attacked. He's already bleeding profusely. And then in a few seconds later, there's a huge oh caravan or platoon of soldiers who come riding in and they further, they do further violence on the samurai. And these two peasants, they see it happening before we see it and they're horrified and it's the first moment of action in the movie.
DH: Yeah, and I think it's almost all that's still in the opening first shot because the movie opens on this wide shot. You see these two disheveled guys stumbling across the desert and it's a following shot. So we're just, they're walking ahead and the camera's just following directly behind them and they're arguing and fighting and falling all over each other. That shot goes on about five minutes and I think that the defeated samurai who runs in, it's in the same shot. And then in that action sequence when he's killed, I think there may be a couple of edits, but yeah,it's a long opening sequence.
SVW: And most of the movie was filmed around Mount Fujior in a uh sort of semi-desert area in Japan.
DH: And some of it was obviously shot in studios too, buthe's pretty great at disguising that.
SVW: And some of the other...Theaction sequences areall great. There's always a little bit of time between them.The sequence where the Toshiro Mifune general character is riding down two other soldiers who have discovered themand the way that that's edited ismagnificent. And then that leaves into him riding into the area where there's the opposing general who knows him and then that's when we have the big duel with the spears.
DH: So I would say, you know,I don't know if we're gonna, I think we've decided to do a couple or three shows on Kurosawa, but we may not do one on the seven samurai since that's so famous and most people know it if you don't know it, that's the Kurosawa film to see, but right up there with it, I would say, for his action samurai adventure films, The Hidden Fortress.
SVW: For sure, man, this is amazing film. Thanks for joining us.
DH: Thanks, Scott.
