Synopsis
The Hidden Fortress (隠し砦の三悪人, 1958) is Akira Kurosawa's adventure drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Feudal Japan is tearing itself apart in clan warfare, and two miserable peasants want only one thing: grab some gold and slip away alive.
Tahei and Matashichi bicker, panic, and squabble over every coin until they cross paths with a stern warrior, Rokurota Makabe, played by Toshiro Mifune. He is escorting a stubborn young woman the peasants are slow to recognize as a princess of a defeated clan, along with a cache of gold stashed in a mountain fortress. To reach safety, the small party has to slip straight through enemy patrols. This was Kurosawa's first widescreen film, and the scale of the battle scenes still lands.
Kurosawa tells the whole thing from the point of view of the two bumblers at the edge of the war, a device George Lucas openly credited as the seed for the two droids in Star Wars. Mifune carries himself with a swagger that's hard to look away from. It's brisk, funny, and surprisingly light for anyone who assumes Kurosawa always means grim and heavy. Stream The Hidden Fortress (1958) online on iFILM.
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