DATE CHANGED: High and Low (1963) dir. by Akira Kurosawa @ Mary Pretlow Library

If you haven't seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to see this movie. I've been describing it to people as three Hitchcock thrillers rolled into one.

RUNTIME: 143 minutes

SYNOPSIS (via Criterion.com): Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku), the highly influential domestic drama and police procedural from director Akira Kurosawa. Adapting Ed McBain's detective novel King's Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society.

BLURBS:
"One of the best detective thrillers ever filmed." - A.O. Scott, New York Times

"One of the greatest cops-and-crooks films ever made, High and Low is a combination of immensely powerful psychodrama and exquisitely detailed police procedural." - James Rocchi, Netflix