In Wheeler Auditorium
Admission:$6.00

(Also known as Three Bad Men in a Hidden Fortress.) In The Hidden Fortress, Kurosawa takes the conventional Japanese period film, combines it with fairy-tale elements and comes 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. Donald Richie writes, in The Films of Akira Kurosawa, “Kurosawa here--as in Sanjuro--purposely uses the very stuff from which the sword-fight costume-pictures are made: coincidence, loyalty, disguised princesses, lost treasures, the flight through enemy lines.... It is as though Buñuel had made The Mark of Zorro. 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 this all sounds strangely familiar, consider George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy, which contains many ideas and plot elements, not to mention its comic-adventure spirit, borrowed, in tribute, from The Hidden Fortress.
The Hidden Fortress opens theatrically at the Castro Theater, San Francisco, on March 11.

Toshiro Mifune will answer questions after the film. Audie Bock will host and provide English translation.