Hidden Fortress marks Kurosawa's first foray into the realm of widescreen, and the film – though constrained in a lot of ways (focusing on four characters) – feels big.

| Jun 27, 2023

Akira Kurosawa, director of Rashomon, has an eye for epic sweep and somber mood, but neither is quite suitable here.

| Mar 16, 2023

[The Hidden Fortress] is overlong and drawn out in the beginning but once it gets moving, is filled with interest, suspense, action and comedy. I enjoyed it immensely.

| Jun 28, 2022

One of the best recent examples of Japanese film-making, this festival entry is distinguished by high grade direction. It also abounds in action, and is handsomely acted and produced.

| Jun 28, 2022

Suspense and tension are maintained by able performances, skilled direction, shrewd photography.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 28, 2022

Kurosawa is a wonderfully fierce director, with a stringent sense of humour, and a wily eclecticism when it suits him.

| Jun 28, 2022

The photography is excellent.

| Jun 28, 2022

It’s good to have Japanese director Akira Kurosawa back with us in top form again with his The Hidden Fortress.

| Jun 28, 2022

The scene in The Hidden Fortress where the escaping captives ride down a hill into the valley below, exulting in their freedom, has a poetic force which is hard to find elsewhere.

| Jun 28, 2022

The aim this picaresque romance about a couple of comic peasants who find themselves involved in matters military and political... is not unrewarding the background being unusual and the acting as always with this director of a high standard.

| Jun 28, 2022

[A] splendidly scenic adventure.

| Jun 28, 2022

It does not achieve, and for that matter does not even attempt, the subtleties of some of [Kurosawa's] other films. notably Rashomon and The Seven Samurai... but even as entertainment it is still just as clearly the work of a major talent.

| Jun 28, 2022

George Lucas says he lifted the plot of Star Wars from this 1958 production, which remains the only Kurosawa film unburdened by a need to make art.

| Jun 28, 2022

It's a thrilling adventure yarn and epic in scale to boot.

| Jun 28, 2022

An entertaining adventure comedy that utilized widescreen technology to breathtaking effect (and represents Kurosawa's first time using Toho Scope), it's an impressively structured endeavor.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 4, 2020

Even in the moments of levity, cleverness works its way into forms of manipulation, trickery, and lucky escapes.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 22, 2020

A bit on the dry side but worth watching for its influence and scope

| Original Score: 6/10 | May 7, 2020

The film illustrates Kurosawa's two weaknesses: a tendency to over-labor and repeat and the mingling of incompatible genres; both are traits of a director who is unsure of his style.

| Jul 30, 2019

[Kurosawa has made] it with zest and with a magnificent sense of timing : it is a very handsome film and it goes at a varied, beautifully judged pace for all its two hours.

| Jun 19, 2019

Kurosawa's calculations pay off in thrills and clever character delineation. The trials of the journey impose heroic imperatives and bonds of loyalty that ennoble even the meanest characters.

| May 6, 2017