A group of men try to find kidnappers in Akira Kurosawa’s tense noir / police procedural
HIGH AND LOW (TENGOKU TO JIGOKU) (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, October 18, $12, 7:00
Series runs monthly through February
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
On the verge of being forced out of the company he has dedicated his life to, National Shoes executive Kingo Gondo’s (Toshirō Mifune) life is thrown into further disarray when kidnappers claim to have taken his son, Jun (Toshio Egi), and are demanding a huge ransom for his safe return. But when Gondo discovers that they have mistakenly grabbed Shinichi (Masahiko Shimazu), the son of his chauffeur, Aoki (Yutaka Sada), he at first refuses to pay. But at the insistence of his wife (Kyogo Kagawa), the begging of Aoki, and the advice of police inspector Taguchi (Kenjiro Ishiyama), he reconsiders his decision, setting in motion a riveting police procedural that is filled with tense emotion. Loosely based on Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novel King’s Ransom, Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low is divided into two primary sections: the first half takes place in Gondo’s luxury home, orchestrated like a stage play as the characters are developed and the plan takes hold. The second part of the film follows the police, under the leadership of Chief Detective Tokura (Tatsuya Nakadai), as they hit the streets of the seedier side of Yokohama in search of the kidnappers. Known in Japan as Tengoku to Jigoku, which translates as Heaven and Hell, High and Low is an expert noir, a subtle masterpiece that tackles numerous socioeconomic and cultural issues as Gondo weighs the fate of his business against the fate of a small child; it all manages to feel as fresh and relevant today as it probably did back in the ’60s.
Kingo Gondo (Toshirō Mifune) has some tough decisions to make in HIGH AND LOW
High and Low is screening on October 18 at 7:00 at Japan Society, kicking off the first section of the monthly tribute series “Richie’s Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda,” which honors Ohio-born writer, critic, scholar, curator, and filmmaker Donald Richie, who died in February at the age of eighty-eight. Richie was a tireless champion of Japanese culture and, particularly, cinema, and the series features six works by five of his favorite directors. Richie called High and Low, which will be introduced by series curator Kyoko Hirano and followed by a reception, “a morality play in the form of an exciting thriller. A self-made man (Mifune) is ruined by a jealous nobody ([Tsutomu] Yamazaki in his first important screen role) but goes on to do the right thing and in the end the camera observes more similarities than differences between the two. With a memorable mid-film climax on a high-speed bullet-train.” The series continues in November with Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Life of Oharu, in December with Yasujiro Ozu’s Late Autumn (screening on Ozu’s birthday, which will also mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death), in January with Mitsuo Yanagimachi’s Himatsuri, and in February with Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life, appropriately on the one-year anniversary of Richie’s passing. “Thanks to Richie,” Hirano explained in a statement about the festival, “the world knows the greatness of Japanese cinema.”
Korean Cultural Service continues its three-part tribute to South Korean auteur Park Cheol Soo, who died in a traffic accident earlier this year at the age of sixty-four, with the erotically charged The Green Chair. Shortly after being arrested for having sex with a minor, thirty-two-year-old Kim Mun-hee (Seo Jung) rejoins her barely underage lover, nineteen-year-old Hyun (Shim Ji-ho), as they continue their torrid affair, which led to Mun-hee’s divorce. Mun-hee is sentenced to one hundred hours of social service, working in a ward with women suffering from dementia. A concerned police detective (Sun Wook-hyun) and a sneaky journalist (Kim Jun-han) try to keep close tabs on the lovers, so Hyun and Mun-hee soon end up at the country home of her best friend, Jean (Oh Yun-hong), as things keep heating up, both sexually and emotionally. Park fills the first half of The Green Chair with beautiful shots of Mun-hee’s and Hyun’s naked bodies in artistic arrangements, almost like they are one. But in the second half, things get a bit more abstract, culminating in a bizarre, surreal party that incorporates some of the stranger elements of the French New Wave. The Green Chair ends up being a satisfying, if at times extremely confusing and even maddening, exploration of fantasy, desire, and responsibility, not shy in the least. The Green Chair is screening for free October 15 at Tribeca Cinemas as part of the Korean Movie Night series “Remembering Park Cheol Soo: A Korean Filmmaking Legend,” which began October 1 with Park’s 301, 302 and concludes October 29 with B.E.D.
The delightful documentary David Bromberg Unsung Treasure sings the well-deserved praises of a rather unusual character — a white, Jewish bluesman from ritzy Tarrytown, New York. For more than forty years, masterful guitarist and songwriter David Bromberg has been singing his entertaining brand of the blues and bluegrass, either solo, with his Big Band, or with the Angel Band. A consummate musician, engaging raconteur, and outstanding live performer, he trained with the Rev. Gary Davis before going on to play with such superstars as Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, George Harrison, Jerry Jeff Walker, and a litany of others. A big man with an ever-present beard, mustache, and glasses, Bromberg is an utterly charming figure, speaking honestly and openly about his life and career, often mentioning how deeply he was affected by the way he was raised and how that helped instill the blues in him. Beth Toni Kruvant (The Right to Be Wrong, Heart of Stone) traces his early years through wonderful archival footage and old photographs, then delves into his departure from playing music in the late 1980s and 1990s, when he and his wife, singer Nancy Josephson, moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where he established a well-respected 