AUTHOR'S NOTE: I AM GOING TO POST THIS REVIEW IN INSTALLMENTS, PART 2 TO FOLLOW THIS (I HOPE) IN A TIMELY MANNER.
I rented HIGH AND LOW (1963) directed by AKIRA KUROSAWA on AMAZON PRIME. I started watching the movie on TUBI, where I think it is still free, BUT I GOT SICK OF THE COMMERCIAL BREAKS AND I WILL NOT STAND TO HAVE KUROSAWA INTERRUPTED BY ****ING FLO FROM PROGRESSIVE.
![Image](https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/carousel-files/c2ce461f5ba7af762748a38fe3b2248c.jpeg)
apparently, in JAPANESE, the title is HEAVEN AND HELL, which is MUCH MUCH MUCH BETTER AND MORE APT FOR THIS MOVIE.
This movie is 2 hours and 29ish minutes and- JESUS CHRIST FORGIVE ME- it needed to be shorter.
I regret to say that I DID NOT LIKE THIS MOVIE.
Mind you, I am not saying it was a bad movie, I am saying that I unequivocally did not like it. At all.
And I feel bad about that, because (sorry to repeat this)- but RAN, RASHOMAN, KAGEMUSHA: THE SHADOW WARRIOR, SEVEN SAMURAI and SANJURO are PERFECT FILMS, I have NO NOTES, they are 10/10, [and in the case of RASHOMAN 11/10.]
I was therefore STUNNED TO SEE that HIGH AND LOW has a higher IMDB rating than all of those movies except for SEVEN SAMURAI, which just....(shrug emoji)
for me personally it was 6/10, it rallied at the end, but by that time, several of the choices made by KUROSAWA for what I know were good reasons just made for an unrewarding experience- really, the first KUROSAWA film I have seen. where I haven't felt invigorated, but instead defeated.