High and Low

Introduction by Steven Chung, associate professor at Princeton University.

Starring Toshiro Mifune in one of his most unforgettable leading roles as a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper. Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential HIGH AND LOW is a compelling race-against-time thriller that acts as a penetrating portrait of class dynamics within contemporary Japanese society. Considered by many to be Kurosawa’s defining film, we will be presenting HIGH AND LOW in a brand new restoration. In Japanese w/ subtitles.

Steven Chung is associate professor in the East Asian Studies department, associate faculty in Comparative Literature, and on the Executive Committee for Film Studies. His research and teaching interests range widely: from Korean and East Asian film and media to global histories of political and religious conversion to traditions in film theory and critical theory. His first book, Split Screen Korea: Shin Sang-ok and Postwar Cinema, published in 2014 and winner of that year’s Association for Asian Studies Prize for Best Book in Korean Studies, explored the aesthetic and political terrain of the postcolonial and postwar Korean peninsula through the work of filmmaker Shin Sang-ok. His current research tracks the circulation and reconfiguration of audiovisual technologies throughout Cold War in East and Southeast Asias.

Director Akira Kurosawa

Cast Toshiro Mifune, Yutaka Sada, Tatsuya Nakadai

Country Japan

Language Japanese (with subtitles)

More info on IMDB ››