The Hidden Fortress

Kurosawa was named Best Director at Berlin in 1959 for this swashbuckling swords-and-samurai farce, shot on the slopes of Mount Fuji, and set in 16th-century Japan. Beautifully composed in black-and-white CinemaScope — Kurosawa’s first use of the widescreen format, and one of the first in Japanese cinema — the film recounts the hapless adventures of Tahei and Matakishi, two bumbling peasants tricked into accompanying a general, a princess, and a treasure of gold on a dangerous journey through enemy territory. George Lucas has cited The Hidden Fortress and Seven Samurai as chief inspirations for his Star Wars cycle, and Tahei and Matakishi are obvious prototypes for his metallic clowns R2D2 and C3PO. Toshiro Mifune — “delivering a performance that blows Luke Skywalker out of the galaxy” (Michael Rechtshaffen) — plays the princess’s heroic protector. “An action drama . . . but one so beautifully made, one so imaginative, so funny, so tender, and so sophisticated that it comes near to being the most lovable film Kurosawa has ever made . . . It is as though Buñuel had made The Mark of Zorro” (Donald Richie). “Probably Kurosawa’s most dazzling exercise in pure filmmaking” (Film Forum New York). B&W, 35mm, in Japanese with English subtitles. 139 mins.