Director - Akira Kurosawa
Ryûzô Kikushima (screenplay)
Cast Character
Kyogo Kagawa ... Gondo's wife
Tatsuya Mihashi
... secretary Kawanishi
Yutaka Sada
... Aoki (chauffeur)
Kenjiro Ishiyama ... Taguchi (inspector)
Tsutoma Yamazaki ...
the kidnapper
Takashi Shimura ... police commissary
An executive of a shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped and held for ransom. - IMDB
The film High and Low begins with National Shoes company trying to make a deal. They go through strategies on how to market shoes from durability, price and fashion. One man argues the seller's shoes are too durable which prevent repeat business making a financial loss for the company. The boss owns half the company and they are afraid of what will happen to their position. They don't have enough of a percentage of stocks to take over.
They try to persuade Gondo to join them so they have 34% of the company. Baba says he will take over since he orchestrated the plan to force out the former boss if everything goes accordingly. Kingo Gondo complains about the buyers shoddy shoes and that although the boss is old fashioned he makes high quality shoes. When Gondo refuses to join their scheme the other man threatens to join the boss and vote him out. Baba tempts Kawanishi, Gondo's assistant, to help them and they will make him a director. Kingo Gondo coaches his son how to play to win and his wife tells him - referring to the business deal - "Success isn't worth losing your humanity."
Aoki, Gondo's chauffeur, looks for his boy Shinichi who has disappeared. Gondo receives a phone call from a kidnapper saying his boy has been kidnapped in exchanged for 30 million Yen. They see their son Jun in the house and he hasn't been kidnapped. It was Aoki's son who was. After the detectives record the phone call Gondo tells them this is not just about losing his money, the kidnapper wants to humiliate him since he has such a high executive position. In Japan everything is about saving face so humiliating someone is the worst social thing one can do. His wife, Reiki, tries to reason with Gondo saying he was willing to pay for his son's safety so why can't he pay for the chauffeur's?
Considering the fact that Gondo has mortgaged everything and used all the money he has to buy more stocks in the company he is truly trapped. To further this tension they are stuck in the house giving a claustrophobic, tight tension throughout. As the kidnapper calls in he keeps the phone calls short to avoid being traced to his location. Gondo decides not to pay the money as his whole life's work is too important to lose. His wife pleads but tells her she is spoiled and knows nothing of true poverty.
Gondo wants to go ahead and buy out the company but Kawanishi can't advise him to. He says if he goes ahead with the deal the public will hate him for buying the company and sacrificing a child causing no one to want to buy his shoes. Kawanishi wanted him to pay the ransom to force him out of the company. Everyone tries to play guilt trips on this man when acquiring power is at stake. Kawanishi admits to planning with the three other buyers. Detective Nakao says Gondo doesn't have to pay as it is his livelihood after all. He does ask him to bluff so they at least have the kidnapper's location when they meet.
The kidnapper calls and tells him to open the drapes. The detectives hide flat on the ground. He asks Gondo if he is up to anything suspicious. He keeps the calls short and to the point to avoid being traced. They listen to the taped call and hear a coin drop determining it must be a payphone.
On the train Gondo receives a phone call telling him to throw the two briefcases of money out the window before they stop to Atami. They find Shinichi at the stop. For once in the story the detectives have compassion for Gondo seeing he sacrificed control of the company and 30,000,000 Yen for the chauffeur's boy. As the kidnapper listens to the radio and reads the newspaper about the case he grows angry as people show sympathy for Gondo's incredible sacrifice. The kidnapper grows even more jealous because of Gondo's talent, wealth and personal character. The title High and Low is appropriate given its associations with heaven and hell, success and poverty, comfort and despair. Everyone sees Gondo's house on the hill and his success is a part for all to see.
After a lengthy meeting narrowing down payphone locations and paint samples of the stolen car they narrowed down six stolen vehicles - one that has a gray color like the paint scratch left at the scene. They have the license plate number and a possible lead. They also compile a list of money with the serial numbers given out. One detective says he saw a man with a boy in his car sleeping heading to Fujisawa. Chief Detective Toguchi feels the executives were behind the kidnapping to force Gondo out and take control of the company.
When one of the detectives listens to the tapes again they hear a trolley and show it to the employees who work there who point out where it is. It is on the Enoshima Line. Aoki has Shinichi now and drives him around to see if he remembers the location of where he was taken. He does with luck and the detectives meet with them before entering the house. The two accomplices are dead from heroin overdose. Detective Nakao rules that is was homicide due to the unusually high purity.
Back at Gondo's apartment they see a pink smoke in the distance and Chief Detective Taguchi rushes to the garbage dump and questions the man working there. He tells him a man brought a box to be burned. They trace the man from the worker's assertion that the guy works in Internal Medicine. There they see a man with a cut on his hand - the same that little Shinichi drew.
The detectives forge a letter from his accomplices demanding more drugs or else they will call the police. This will lead the detective to arrest him for a more serious crime than kidnapping. They tail him as he buys a red carnation as a sign for the drug dealer. As they dance they cleverly hold hands to exchange money and dope. He goes to a slum and picks up a junkie and takes her to a small inn. He uses her desperation to test the drug on her which she dies. The suspect notices Gondo looking at shoes in a storefront window. When Takeuchi, the kidnapper, returns home the detectives ambush him. They arrest him and seize almost all the money he stole before.
In the newspaper it says Takeuchi will get the death penalty. In jail he requests to talk to Gondo. They talk and Gondo tells him he's working in a small shoe company to rival National Shoes. He tells Gondo his small room was so hot in the summer and so cold in the winter and looking up at Gondo's house looked like heaven. He tells Gondo he hates him for this. He tells Gondo his life from the beginning has been hell. In the two sided window we see reflections of each other behind each character. What can be interpreted by this is that inside Gondo is a peasant afraid to be poor which drives him to be rich. Inside Takeuchi is a man desperate using whatever threats to be powerful and placed behind him is a man brought down to fear who has nothing to fear.
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