The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Official trailer

The Hidden Fortress is Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 Japanese adventure film. The film depicts two ragged peasants Tahei and Matashichi attempting to flee a feudal war when they encounter General Rokurota Makabe protecting his clan’s defeated princess Yuki. Rokurota recruits the peasants to help transport gold and the princess across enemy territory to safety. The peasants don’t initially understand they’re escorting royalty. Their misunderstandings and venal calculations provide comic relief throughout the dangerous journey. Toshiro Mifune plays General Rokurota Makabe. Misa Uehara plays Princess Yuki. Minoru Chiaki plays Tahei.

Kamatari Fujiwara plays Matashichi. Susumu Fujita plays General Hyoe Tadokoro. Takashi Shimura plays the old general Izumi Nagakura. Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Kurosawa wrote the screenplay. Toho produced the film on a budget that was Kurosawa’s largest to date, and it became Toho’s highest-grossing film of 1958.

Kurosawa never made anything more fun than this, as far as I’m concerned.

It’s funny, it moves, and Mifune’s general has more swagger than the Obi-Wan he turned into. I’d hand it to anybody who claims they don’t have patience for old samurai films. The only thing I’d trim is a stretch or two of the peasants’ squabbling, and I say that as somebody who loves those two.

The Hidden Fortress is the foundational source for Star Wars (1977). George Lucas has acknowledged The Hidden Fortress as direct structural inspiration for his later space epic. The two peasants Tahei and Matashichi correspond to droids R2-D2 and C-3PO whose perspective frames the larger conflict. The princess in distress reflects Princess Leia. The veteran warrior protecting her corresponds to Obi-Wan Kenobi. The film’s narrative perspective gives the audience access through the lowest characters instead of the highest, the technique Lucas would extend in his own work.

The combination of foundational influence on later global cinema and considerable Kurosawa craft gives The Hidden Fortress double cultural standing. The film works as both Japanese adventure and as document of how later global cinema would develop its narrative approaches.

The Star Wars Connection

George Lucas has acknowledged The Hidden Fortress as direct inspiration for Star Wars (1977). The structural correspondence is considerable. The peasant duo corresponds to the droid duo. The fleeing princess corresponds to Princess Leia. The veteran warrior protecting her corresponds to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The narrative perspective through the lowest characters corresponds to Lucas’s framing through R2-D2 and C-3PO. The hidden fortress where the gold is concealed corresponds to the rebel base.

Star Wars scholars have studied the connection extensively, and Lucas has said he went back to The Hidden Fortress repeatedly while developing his film. The parallels are fun to trace, but I’d push back on anybody who treats this as a Star Wars prototype. Kurosawa’s film is funnier and earthier than the one it inspired, and people should watch it for itself.

The Peasant Perspective

Tahei and Matashichi are the film’s real protagonists, even though General Rokurota gets more screen time. The opening tracks the peasants for a long stretch before Rokurota or the princess appear, and the war reaches us through their confused observations. This pair is a joy. They’re cowardly, venal and forever calculating their share of the gold, and Kurosawa makes them so human that I end up rooting for them anyway.

Kurosawa argued that peasants make better protagonists than nobles because peasants lack information audiences also lack. Nobles know political situations audiences would need extensive exposition to understand. Peasants don’t know much more than the audience does. Their gradual discovery provides natural exposition that doesn’t require artificial explanation.

The method has been imitated across multiple later films. Lucas’s use of the droids is one application. Various other productions have continued the approach over decades.

The Princess Performance

Misa Uehara plays Princess Yuki with intensity that conventional princess characters typically don’t require. Yuki has lost her clan in war. She’s lost her brother. She knows her survival depends on warriors she can’t fully command. The performance combines royal authority with the distinct desperation of a woman whose social standing depends on circumstances she can’t control. Uehara plays Yuki at the level of dramatic seriousness instead of as conventional damsel.

The princess is a long way from the usual 1950s Japanese screen heroine.

Yuki gives orders, shows independent judgment and steps physically into conflicts the men around her haven’t resolved. Kurosawa’s films don’t have many strong female protagonists, and she’s among the best of them. I think Uehara is the film’s secret weapon. She lets Yuki’s authority and desperation show at the same time, and the picture gets heavier whenever she’s in the frame.

Does The Hidden Fortress still hold up?

A 9 from me. The Hidden Fortress gave Star Wars its bones, and it’s also first-rate Kurosawa in its own right: a rousing adventure told from the gutter up, with a princess who gives the orders and a general worth following. Watch it if you care about samurai cinema, about Kurosawa or about where modern blockbusters came from. The only thing between it and a 10 is a little too much peasant squabbling.

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