Fwd: Seeking reviews on Hidden Fortress

Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow onogerow
Fri Jan 16 20:57:30 EST 1998


>I am interested in the Kurosawa film, "Kakushi Toride no San Akunin",
>called "The Hidden Fortress" in English, and dating from 1958.  I wonder if
>anyone could direct me to sources for reviews of this film.   I would like
>to read Japanese and American review, to get a sense of how the
>film may have been appreciated differently by contemporaries.
>
>Thomas Bartlett
>La Trobe University

The easiest way to look up some contemporary reviews of films released in 
the US is to check out the multi-volume _New York Times Film Reviews_ and 
_Variety Film Reviews_.  Both publications were fairly comprehensive in 
their reviews even for foreign films.

For Japan, the first source is always _Kinema junpo_.  _Kinema junpo_ 
publishes reviews and "introductions" (giving basic cast/credit and plot 
information) on almost all films released in Japan.  Right now, I only 
have their index of introductions (in the _Nihon eiga sakuhin zenshu_ 
from 1973), which gives issue #217 (postwar numbering) as the intro issue 
for _Kakushi_.  The review should be in one of the couple issues before 
or after that.  (The six-volume 1961 Kinema Junpo _Nihon eiga sakuhin 
zenshu_ does include a review citation for each film.)

Otherwise, for Japan, the only thing to do is to dig around the magazines 
and newspapers from that time.

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University




More information about the KineJapan mailing list