The Hidden Fortress

For years and years I wondered what is special about The Hidden Fortress, one of the most famous movies of Kurosawa that IRIB did not want to broadcast it while most of his movies have been shown over and over. I finally found when I bought the DVD of the film from Farmers Market last year and watched it twice. One of the main characters of the movie is a young girl in shorts and sleeveless shirt. Obviously violates the basic policy of IRIB!

The kind of dress that the Princess of Azuki has on in the movie was not considered appropriate in that time when Japan was considered a feudal country. You can see it clearly by the way the public looks at her in the movie. And still not appropriate in the IRIB's view and organizations like that. But who care whet they believe in!?

But the movie itself is not as great as what I expected to be. The movie is basically not about a hidden fortress. The fortress only occupies probably not more than 45 minutes of the 2-hour movie. It is about two groups of small people who happen to have the same intention and that is crossing a border so for that reason they cooperate and accomplish their goal. Like most of Kurosawa movies there a few nice Samurai battle senses but again not as much as what you expect. The movie is basically about the way the plan and execute that plan. But overall its worth watching and buying. I guess I only paid $5 for it which is absolutely OK.

One interesting thing about the movie is that George Lucas used the opening scene of it for his blockbuster, Star Wars and in the DVD he actually talks about it as part of the special features of the disk. If you remember the way Star Wars, the very first movie started, it resembles the exact same way that this movie begins. The peasants are the two droids and the Princess of Azuki is Princess Leia!

(Photo: The main characters of the story: The Princess of Azuki, Mifone, a general of the same tribe or whatever they call it and two peasants who got caught in the middle of the battle and get together with the other two to cross the border and go to their village)