| High and Low | |
|---|---|
&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:HIGH_AND_LOW_JP_.jpg) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Akira Kurosawa |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on | King's Ransom by Evan Hunter |
| Produced by | Ryūzō Kikushima Tomoyuki Tanaka |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | |
| Edited by | Akira Kurosawa[1] |
| Music by | Masaru Sato[1] |
Production companies | |
Release date |
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Running time | 143 minutes[1] |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Budget | ¥230 million[2] |
| Box office | ¥460.2 million[3] |
High and Low (Japanese: 天国と地獄, Hepburn: Tengoku to Jigoku, literally "Heaven and Hell") is a 1963 Japanese police procedural crime film directed and edited by Akira Kurosawa and written by Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Eijiro Hisaita, and Ryûzô Kikushima. The film is loosely based on the 1959 novel King's Ransom by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter). It follows the story of a board member for a Japanese company who is forced to make a decision between using a vast amount of wealth to gain executive control and helping his employee by lending him the money to free his child from kidnappers.
The film stars Toshiro Mifune as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy man who puts himself into debt in a risky bid to enact a hostile takeover of National Shoes, and Tatsuya Nakadai as Inspector Tokura, the man charged with solving the kidnapping case. Filmed in Tokyo and Kanagawa, the film has been regarded as embodying a revitalised post-War Japan, particularly in anticipation of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
Released in Japan on 1 March 1963, High and Low received highly positive reviews and has become highly appraised as one of Kurosawa's best films. With a budget of ¥230 million, it was the largest budget Kurosawa had worked with at the time and became the highest grossing film domestically that year. It has since been remade and reinterpreted numerous times both within Japan and internationally.