High and Low (1963 film)

High and Low
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay by	Hideo Oguni Ryūzō Kikushima Eijirō Hisaita Akira Kurosawa
Based on	King's Ransom by Evan Hunter
Produced by	Ryūzō Kikushima Tomoyuki Tanaka
Starring	Toshirō Mifune Tatsuya Nakadai Kyōko Kagawa Tatsuya Mihashi
Cinematography	Asakazu Nakai Takao Saitō

High and Low (Japanese: 天国と地獄, Hepburn: Tengoku to Jigoku; lit. 'Heaven and Hell') is a 1963 Japanese police procedural film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It was written by Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijirō Hisaita, and Ryūzō Kikushima as a loose adaptation of the 1959 novel King's Ransom by Evan Hunter. Starring Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyōko Kagawa and Tatsuya Mihashi, it tells the story of Japanese businessman Kingo Gondō (Mifune) struggling for control of the major shoe company of which he is a board member. He plans a leveraged buyout of the company with his life savings, when a kidnapper mistakenly abducts his chauffeur's son to ransom him for ¥30 million. The film is viewed as influential on police procedural cinema, and has been remade multiple times internationally.

The film was produced by Toho, who bought the rights to Hunter's novel in 1961 for $5,000. Working on a production budget of ¥230 million, filming on High and Low began on 2 September 1962, taking place on location at Yokohama and on set at Toho Studios. Only one attempt could be made to film the ransom exchange. The shoot required multiple cameramen, leading to all other film productions being shut down for the day. Filming ended on 30 January 1963. Kurosawa worked with Masaru Satō to score the film in their eighth collaboration together; the film's soundtrack contains a variety of influences, including mambo, classical, and modern popular music. Post-production took just under a month and, after test screenings in mid-February 1963, the film received a wide distribution.

High and Low was released in Japan on 1 March 1963 and became the highest-grossing film at the Japanese box office for that year. The film received generally positive reviews both domestically and abroad. In September 1963, the film was entered into the Official Selection for the Venice Film Festival. The limited American release of the film in late November coincided with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, an event that led to a depression in initial box office takings. High and Low was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globe Awards for 1964. Critical opinion of the film has remained high, with analyses of the film focusing on Kurosawa's humanism in tackling the issue of a growing class divide, the growth of an international consumer culture, and the film's use of structure to interrogate morality and social division.

Plot

Wealthy executive Kingo Gondō is engaged in a struggle to gain control of the company National Shoes. The board of the company is split between executives seeking to make cheap and low-quality shoes, and the ageing largest shareholder who makes sturdy but unfashionable shoes. Gondō rejects these plans, envisioning a strategy requiring high production costs for long-term profitability. He has secretly set up a leveraged buyout to gain control of the company, mortgaging all his property. Just as he is about to put the plan into action, Gondō receives a phone call from someone claiming to have kidnapped his son, Jun, for a ransom of ¥30 million. Gondō is prepared to pay the ransom, but the call is dismissed as a prank when Jun returns home from playing outside. However, Jun's playmate Shin'ichi, the child of Gondō's chauffeur, is missing as the kidnappers had mistakenly abducted him instead.

In another phone call, the kidnapper reveals that he has discovered his mistake but still demands the same ransom. Gondō is forced to make a decision whether to pay the ransom to save the child or complete the buyout. After contemplating it, Gondō announces that he will not pay the ransom, fearing that doing so would jeopardise his job, his finances, and the future of his family. His plans are thwarted when his top aide lets the "cheap shoes" faction know about the kidnapping in return for a promotion should they take over. Finally, after continuous pleading from the chauffeur and under pressure from his wife, Gondō decides to pay the ransom. The evening prior to the ransom exchange, with police assistance, Gondō fixes two briefcases to contain pods that release a foul odour when submerged in water or pink smoke when burnt. Following the kidnapper's instructions, the money is put into the briefcases and thrown out from a moving train as police attempt to monitor the area. Shin'ichi is safely recovered at the site of the money drop.

The police undertake an investigation using clues from the kidnapper's phone calls and Shin'ichi's memory to determine his identity. They eventually find the hideout where Shin'ichi was kept prisoner, discovering two bodies of the kidnapper's accomplices suspiciously killed by an overdose of heroin. The police surmise that the kidnapper engineered their deaths by supplying them with uncut drugs. Meanwhile, Gondō is forced out of the company and his creditors demand the collateral put up against his loan in lieu of the debt. Seeking the support of the press, the police encourage them to report the story widely and help misdirect the kidnapper with a false report. Gondō is seen as a hero, while the National Shoes Company is vilified. Further clues, culminating in a plume of pink smoke, lead to the identity of the kidnapper: a medical intern at a nearby hospital. However, the police lack hard evidence to link him to the murder of his accomplices.

The police lay a trap by first planting a false story in the newspapers implying that the accomplices are still alive, and then forging a note from them demanding more drugs. Concerned about his accomplices, the kidnapper tests the drugs' strength on another drug addict who overdoses and dies. The kidnapper is apprehended at the accomplices' hideout by the police while trying to supply another lethal dose of uncut heroin. Most of the ransom money is recovered, but it is too late to save Gondō's property from auction. With the kidnapper facing a death sentence, he requests to see Gondō while in prison. Gondō agrees to meet him face to face. At this time, Gondō is now working for a rival shoe company, earning less money but enjoying much more freedom in running it. The kidnapper tells Gondō that he has no regrets for his actions, explaining that envy from seeing Gondō's house on the hill every day led him to conceive of the crime. Gradually losing his composure, he shrieks as he is dragged away and a screen divides the two of them, leaving Gondō alone.

Cast

Production

Development

High and Low's screenplay was co-written by Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijirō Hisaita, and Ryūzō Kikushima. The story is based on Evan Hunter's novel King's Ransom (1959). Toho purchased the rights to adapt the novel in 1961 for $5,000. The film contains significant differences from the novel. Much of the story during and after the ransom exchange is not present in the original work. The film departs from the novel by placing emphasis on social issues and the class perspective of the protagonist; drugs are featured; and unlike Hunter's protagonist, Gondō does not catch the kidnapper himself. The script was written with an ending that depicted Inspector Tokura and Gondō having a conversation.

The script was written straight-to-final draft (a process that creates a production-ready screenplay without writing prior drafts and treatments), similarly to Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962) before it. Kurosawa said after the release of Red Beard (1965) that he made High and Low because his friend's son was kidnapped. Speaking to Joan Mellen, he described wanting to stress the leniency of Japanese kidnapping laws and their inadequate attention to the suffering of the victims. Despite not being particularly impressed with the writing of Hunter's novel, Kurosawa was struck by the concept of the novel's kidnapping. Even though he was shocked at the brazenness and cruelty of the crime depicted, Kurosawa felt that Yamazaki's character deserved some sympathy, partially due to his background and situation.

Pre-production and production

The film had a budget of ¥230 million. Pre-production began on 20 July 1962, when Kurosawa began casting roles that had not yet been filled. He cast Tsutomu Yamazaki to play the role of the kidnapper, possibly at the suggestion of his former assistant, Hiromichi Horikawa, who had directed Yamazaki in the film My Daughter and I (1962). Yamazaki recalled feeling anxious and nauseous during the audition, calming down only after he began exchanging lines with Kurosawa. The role launched him to acting success, appearing in two more of Kurosawa's films—Red Beard and Kagemusha (1980)—and starring in the TV series Hissatsu Shiokinin (1973). Kurosawa also included cameos by his previous collaborators, including the star of his first film Sanshiro Sugata (1943), Susumu Fujita, and character actor Masao Shimizu.

High and Low was filmed at Toho Studios and on location in Yokohama. The film was shot using TohoScope, a widescreen filming system. Filming began on 2 September 1962 with the first act, the majority of which was filmed at Toho Studios. Many of the takes shot for the film's first half were ten minutes long, and it is possible that they would have been longer if the capacity of the cameras' magazines were larger. Two different sets were used to film Gondō's home overlooking Yokohama. One was filmed on location, overlooking the city. The night scenes, showing the same location and view, were filmed with a miniature display outside the window, as the outside of the location set could not be photographed well at night. Long-distance lenses were used, particularly to obtain close-ups, as the camera rarely entered the set. It was constructed as a room with an open wall. During production of his films, Kurosawa would take his frustrations out on the cast and crew, a pattern that became worse during High and Low's creation—it was here that his reputation of making difficulties for the studio and those working on the film began to precede him.

The ransom exchange sequence (wherein money is dropped through the open window of a Kodama express train) required nine cameras to film and was shot almost entirely with hand-helds. All the cameramen at Toho were required to film simultaneously, which led to every other film production being shut down for the day. One camera was positioned under the bridge where the money drop took place, two eight-millimetres photographed the kidnappers at the ends of the train, and detectives were each followed by two cameras. There was only one attempt to film the scene due to the reservation and use of the express train. During the take, one of the cameras following Takeshi Katō on the train malfunctioned and did not capture the scene. The crew had to reshoot his part on a different day. According to script supervisor Teruyo Nogami, during this scene, a nearby building hid the face of one of the kidnapper's accomplices. To fix the issue, alterations were made to the second floor of the building with a blue sheet used to disguise these alterations, a job conceived and executed just a day before filming took place. However, film critic Atsushi Kobayashi writes that it was instead a prefabricated construction worker's dormitory, which was removed by stagehands, that was blocking the view of the kidnapped child Shin'ichi.