Gondō (Toshiro Mifune) is a wealthy executive in the middle of a scheme to take over the company he works for.
As the deal hangs in the balance, Gondō is sent a mysterious demand: kidnappers are holding his son for ransom.
Gondō is willing to do anything to save his son - until he realises the kidnappers have mistaken his chauffeur’s son for his and are holding the wrong child.
Gondō is forced to confront a greater obstacle than the kidnappers’ deadline: his own willingness to weigh an innocent life against his own material gain…
Based on a novel by Evan Hunter, High and Low is a study in class, and how that influences society’s sense of crime.
It was a bit of a shock to see Toshiro Mifune in this setting. Not the contemporary dress, but the style - Gondō is a stuffed shirt, a square.
We meet him at the height of his power - he is attempting a hostile takeover of his company by buying out other shareholders.
This is also built on hubris.
Gondō is at his most vulnerable: He has had to mortgage everything he owns in order to pull off this gambit.
Most of the opening act is set in Mr Gondō’s living room - an open air space that goes from an embodiment of his status as a king of industry, to a glass cage, once it becomes clear the home is under surveillance.
We get a lot of the signifiers that would go onto become conventions of later kidnapping thrillers:
The team of cops (arriving disguised as a cleaning crew) who educate Gondō on the psychology of the kidnapper
the attempt to trace the kidnappers’ phone call
the ransom drop in a public location
The film even foregrounds the use of recording technology to try and work out the kidnappers’ identity (the in-film camera recording from the train of the kidnappers approaching the drop site).
While these elements are interesting, the real power of the film is the psychological and moral conflict within Gondō as he weighs the life of his chauffeur’s child.
This is where the film’s use of mise-en-scene comes in, in terms of conveying the disparities of economics and power between Gondō and everyone else.
The main character’s white home is on a hill, surrounded on all sides by poorer neighbourhoods.
We get a glimpse of the kidnapper in his own home, a claustrophobic room with an unobstructed view of Mr Gondō’s house.
Kurosawa frames his POV with other buildings to increase the contrast with open space and panoramic view his enemy has.
As the film progresses, the narrative POV shifts from Gondō to the police as they track down the kidnapper. In a particularly impressive scene, we follow the police as they tail the kidnapper (Tatsuya Nakadai) as he himself follows an oblivious Gondō down a busy street.
When the kidnapper is finally caught, he is revealed as engaging in his own twisted power fantasies, using what position and tools he has to manipulate and abuse.
Ironically, the kidnapper’s success over Gondō ends up restoring his victim - he has lost his money, but with it, he regains his sense of self.
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