High and Low

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High and Low is also the title of a lithograph by Dutch artist M. C. Escher and a 1933 film by G. W. Pabst

High and Low (天国と地獄, Tengoku to jigoku, literally "Heaven and Hell") is a 1963 film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It was loosely based on King's Ransom, an 87th Precinct police procedural by Evan Hunter (written under the pseudonym Ed McBain).

High and Low is remarkable, in part, because it very clearly illustrates the divide between the rich and the poor in 1960s-era Japan.

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story tells of an executive named Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) who mortgages all he has to stage a leveraged buyout and gain control of the National Shoe Company, with the intent of keeping the company out of the hands of its other incompetent and greedy executives. Then he learns that his son has been kidnapped. Gondo is prepared to pay the ransom, until he learns that the kidnappers have mistakenly abducted the child of Gondo's chauffeur, instead of his own son. One thread of the plot revolves around how he deals with this ethical dilemma, while the other thread follows the police and their procedure as they put together the clues to find the kidnapped child.

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