A story of rival clans, hidden gold and a princess in distress, The Hidden Fortress is a thrilling mix of fairy story and samurai action movie. It was Kurosawa’s first film shot in the widescreen process of Tohoscope, and he exploited this to the full in the film’s rich variety of landscape locations, including the slopes of Mount Fuji.
The Hidden Fortress became Kurosawa’s biggest box office hit to date and won several awards, including the Golden Bear at the1959 Berlin Film Festival.
Some twenty years on, the film’s influence would have even greater impact on world box offices, when George Lucas borrowed its plot for the first of his Star Wars series. This DVD features an interview with George Lucas about Kurosawa and The Hidden Fortress.
With thanks to Criterion, this new digital transfer was mastered from a 35mm composite fine-grain master positive on a high definition Sony Vialta datacine. To further enhance the image, the MTI Digital Restoration System was utilised to remove thousands of instances of dirt, debris, and scratches. The restored sound was decoded through a Perspecta decoder and re-encoded as a Dolby 3.0 soundtrack.
Product information
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Certificate
PG
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Colour
Black/white
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Sound
Sound
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Running time
138mins
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Languages
Japanese
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Subtitles
English
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Original aspect ratio
16:9
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DVD region
2 Europe (except Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus), Middle East, Egypt, Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Greenland, French Overseas departments and territories
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Catalogue number
BFIVD506
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