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A story of rival clans, hidden gold and a princess in distress, The Hidden Fortress is a thrilling mix of fairy story and samurai action movie. It was Kurosawa's first film shot in the widescreen process of Tohoscope, and he exploited this to the full in the film's rich variety of landscape locations, including the slopes of Mount Fuji.

The Hidden Fortress became Kurosawa's biggest box-office hit to date and won several awards, including the Golden Bear at the 1959 Berlin Film Festival. Some twenty years on, the film's influence would have even greater impact on world cinema history, when George Lucas borrowed its plot for the first of his Star Wars series.