High and Low (1963)
I wanted to put a checkmark on this before Spike Lee’s upcoming film and anything by Kurosawa is always worth watching. It feels closest to Rashamon with a great conceptual premise that plays out like the trolley problem with its ethical dilemma. The setup works perfect and leads into an exciting police investigation, where I appreciated that it was shown as a group effort and not a single detective figuring out everything just from being smart. Good procedural work.
In terms of just pure entertainment, this is top quality from start to finish. Edge-of-the-seat tension all the way. As great as everything is, I still wished some elements could have been developed further. I was intrigued by the whole business side of things in the beginning, with the conflict between making high quality products and earning more money with planned obsolescence. There are also hint at criticism of class inequality, but I felt the theme was left hanging a bit. Maybe Kurosawa just intended the viewers to make their own conclusions on that.
Rating: 4