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Lured by gold, two greedy peasants unknowingly escort a princess and her general across enemy lines. A grand-scale adventure as only Akira Kurosawa could make.
The Hidden Fortress stars the inimitable Toshiro Mifune as a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess (a fierce Misa Uehara) as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory. Accompanying them are a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants who may or may not be their friends. This rip-roaring ride is among the director’s most beloved films and was a primary influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars. The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action, and compassionate humanity. [139 min; action, adventure, drama; Japanese with English subtitles]
"Kurosawa most often did his finest work when combining his idiosyncratic and popular sensibilities into humane, broadly accessible entertainments; it just so happens that The Hidden Fortress remains more unabashedly entertaining than most." — Jordan Cronk, Slant
"The Hidden Fortress is a bracing adventure in its own right—not a frivolous outlier from one of cinema’s most formative oeuvres, but rather a Cervantes-inflected delight that complicates and enriches Kurosawa’s signature humanism by exploring the value of morality in an amoral world." — David Ehrlich, IndieWire
"By introducing comedy into the mixture and telling the tale from an atypical perspective, Kurosawa has differentiated The Hidden Fortress from nearly every similar feudal-era Japanese epic ever committed to the screen. This is a masterpiece." — James Bernadinelli, ReelViews
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