Word: fortress
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Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress is a true folk epic. It has a cast of thousands, plenty of fighting, a mute princess, Misa Uehara, a fire ritual and a noble hero (Toshiro Mifune). In fact, it contains all the ingredients of a first-rate western except a Shogun wedding. In addition, Kurosawa shores up his extravaganza with dramatically effective photography and he has directed his actors to move and speak in a style derived from Japan's traditional Kabuki Theater...
...Middle Ages, The Hidden Fortress relates the adventures of five people who are trapped in an enemy province with a fortune in gold that is hidden inside several hundred hollow branches. This gold is all that remains of the wealth of the Akizukis, a noble house recently deposed in civil war. The Akizuki princess (dressed in tight blouse and bulky shorts) and her loyal general (half-shaven but infinitely courageous) travel with the gold-filled faggots. Two peasant refugees and a woman saved from prostitution do the manual labor...
...would be pointless to retell every episode or every narrow escape; like all epics The Hidden Fortress is packed with excitement, blood and wily stratagems. But this film is more than an adventure story because it treats predictable situations with unusual depth...
...greater part of The Hidden Fortress takes place in a craggy range of mountains. This setting enables Kurosawa to show his characters at marvelous visual angles, sometimes prone against a sharply rising cliffside, sometimes slipping downwards in an avalanche. Always when the action reaches its peak, he increases the tension by emphasizing the natural angularity, and hence the precarious status of Princess and her followers...
...Japanese viewer, The Hidden Fortress must have a very archaic flavor, since Kurosawa has grafted onto it the gruff, stylized vocal tones and, sometimes the abrupt, hyperdramatic gestures of Kabuki. When the two peasants climb mountains in a completely prone position, they recall the balletic exaggeration of Japan's ancestral theatre, as do the shrieks that serve the Princess for "normal" speech. Indeed, she must remain silent throughout the journey because her voice would "reveal her identity...