Review of High and Low (1963) by Jesse O — 09 Feb 2011

This movie was pretty great. The first half of the movie was far superior to the second half, which was the investigation as to who was the kidnapper. The thing is Toshiro Mifune has such a powerful on screen presence, that when he disappears in the second half, the movie just sort of falters without him.

The movie is still good, but I enjoyed the segments in Gondo's house and how Gondo struggles with whether or not to pay the ransom. It was actually a really interesting twist to the usual hostage movie.

And again, Toshiro has such a presence on screen, so while he may not be the best actor, you can't help but pay attention to ANYTHING he does. And the actors who portray the detectives just don't have that presence, so when the movie's second half relies on these detectives, the movie's just not as good.

But as it stands, the movie is still very interesting and very smart piece of work. I like the portrayal of the separation between the upper and lower class. Visually, it's a very OBVIOUS metaphor with Gondo's house on top looking down at the poorer houses, but it's very effective and it creates a situation where it could be ANYONE who's trying to extort Gondo.

The last scene was also very strong, with the villain revealing his motivations. Here's also the thing with this movie. The ending, seems, to be flat because having been conditioned to expect ridiculous twists, you expect EVERY movie to have a twist.

So it's insanely refreshing (if such a thing makes sense when this movie is almost FIFTY years old) when you see a movie such as this, where the movie just ends. There's no "Hey...Gondo did this himself to raise his own standing with the public", which was a theory I was throwing around.

It wouldn't have made one lick of sense, but it was a theory I was throwing around. Just the way the main detective was like "Let's do this for Mr. Gondo because he's suffering" or variating statements.

He did this every couple of scenes, to the point where I thought Gondo himself did it. But no, the story ends up making sense in the end. No silliness. Anyway, this may not be Kurosawa's finest film, it's still an excellent movie that I recommend.