IMDb > Tengoku to jigoku (1963)
Tengoku to jigoku
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Tengoku to jigoku (1963) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
8.1/10   6,933 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 3% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Akira Kurosawa
Writers:
Hideo Oguni (screenplay) &
Ryûzô Kikushima (screenplay) ...
more
Contact:
View company contact information for High and Low on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
26 November 1963 (USA) more
Genre:
Crime | Drama | Thriller more
Plot:
An executive mortgages all he owns to stage a coup and gain control of the National Shoe Company, with... more | add synopsis
Awards:
3 wins & 3 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(4 articles)
Holiday Preview: A Repertory Calendar
 (From IFC. 3 November 2009, 1:01 PM, PST)

The blogs of my blog
 (From Roger Ebert's Blog. 5 October 2009, 4:10 AM, PDT)

User Comments:
About the best police procedural you're ever likely to see more (53 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
Toshirô Mifune ... Kingo Gondo
Tatsuya Nakadai ... Chief Detective Tokura
Kyôko Kagawa ... Reiko Gondo
Tatsuya Mihashi ... Kawanishi - Gondo's Secretary
Isao Kimura ... Detective Arai
Kenjiro Ishiyama ... Chief Detective 'Bos'n' Taguchi (as Kenjirô Ishiyama)
Takeshi Katô ... Detective Nakao
Takashi Shimura ... Chief of Investigation Section
Jun Tazaki ... Kamiya, National Shoes Publicity Director
Nobuo Nakamura ... Ishimaru, National Shoes Design Department Director
Yûnosuke Itô ... Baba - National Shoes Executive
Tsutomu Yamazaki ... Ginjirô Takeuchi - Medical Intern
Minoru Chiaki ... First Reporter
Eijirô Tôno ... Factory Worker
Masao Shimizu ... Prison Warden
more
Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Also Known As:
Heaven and Hell (International: English title) (literal title)
High and Low (USA)
The Ransom (UK)
more
Runtime:
USA:142 min
Country:
Japan
Language:
Japanese
Color:
Black and White | Color (Eastmancolor) (inserts only)
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
4-Track Stereo (Westrex Recording System)
Certification:
Australia:PG | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:12 | UK:12 | UK:A (original rating) (cut)
Filming Locations:
Enoshima, Kanagawa, Japan more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The tenth and last film directed by Akira Kurosawa to feature Minoru Chiaki. more
Quotes:
Reiko Gondo: [to her husband, about their son Jun] He takes after you. He likes violent games. more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004) (TV) more
Soundtrack:
It's Now or Never more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
25 out of 32 people found the following comment useful.
About the best police procedural you're ever likely to see, 7 October 1999
10/10
Author: theorbys from new york city

Toshiro Mifune is a businessman in a Japan that is on the brink of the Economic Miracle of the Sixties. He is an honest man who loves his job as a shoe factory exec and is in a battle for corporate control against a pack of hyenas. He has mortgaged and borrowed and scraped to raise the money for a surprise coup when his son is kidnapped. But there is a major plot twist: it is not HIS son that was taken but his son's playmate, the chauffeur's kid and the ransom demanded is astronomical. If he pays he will lose everything he has worked so hard for, but can he just sacrifice the chauffeur's child because it is not his? From here on High and Low (perhaps better translated as Heaven and Hell) is a police procedural based on an Ed McBain 87th precinct story.

Watching this film I had a rare, almost unique, experience. I saw it on a fairly screen tv, letterboxed, in a darkened room. All the preceding conditions helped contribute to put me into an objective/subjective middle ground where I had the feeling of looking through a special visor that allowed me to see the world by means of an almost perfect film as if through the eyes of a cinematic genius who is in total command of his artistic means and in total command of his subject matter. I think the key to this experience is that while High and Low is interesting as human drama, it is yet peculiarly uninvolving emotionally but very involving cinematically. These distances are important in Kurosawa's films (he is high on my list of top ten directors but after Welles). In IKIRU you probably could not be more deeply involved emotionally, while in RAN there is nothing but relentless distance.

I think a good companion film to watch with this would be Kurosawa's earlier, looser, but much more individually tense, police film STRAY DOG (this time Mifune is the cop)

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Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Tengoku to jigoku (1963)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Remake in the Works Xuesheng
One thing troubles me Adrian
Inaccurate title? FZ-FX
Three reasons I had a hard time keeping a straight face shaggy61
Are movie execs rating this movie a 1? chamelion7
Has anyone read the original Ed McBain story, 'King's Ransom'? debblyst
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