Kurosawa took the conventional Japanese period film, combined it with fairytale elements, and came out with an energetic and brilliant farce. Toshiro Mifune's talent for being heroic while mocking his own heroics is ideally highlighted here. He plays the roaring warlord, General Rokurota Makabe, now defeated and attempting to escape with his charge, Princess Yukihime, into safe territory. They are joined by two comical farmers who alternately help and hinder their efforts. "It is as though Bu-uel had made The Mark of Zorro," writes Donald Richie. "At the same time, Kurosawa himself is by no means immune to the charms of this particularly mindless genre...The result is what they call an action-drama in the trade, 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." If all this sounds strangely familiar, both the spirit and elements of the plot of George Lucas' Star Wars were borrowed, in tribute, from The Hidden Fortress.