Yuki’s journey of self-discovery is triggered by a fire festival that the adventurers witness one night in the forest. She is moved by the spirit of the dancing crowd, the magic of the firelight, and especially the Buddhist hymn to transience: “Life is just a dream.” Later in the film, bound to a pole, she chants these words to her captor, who is moved enough to let her and her companions go.

The Hidden Fortress: Three Good Men and a Princess (criterion.com) The Hidden Fortress was Akira Kurosawa’s first hit after 1954’s Seven Samurai, four years and four films earlier. It won even bigger at the box office and scooped up a handful of Japanese and international awards, proving that its director was not merely an art-house auteur but could fill theaters as well. The film’s popularity in Japan was instrumental in securing financial guarantees for Kurosawa’s own production company, which supported all his subsequent films up to 1970. The pacing and characters of The Hidden Fortress, its landscapes and epic feel, make it a great action film, and as Kurosawa’s first use of widescreen, it is one of his most stylish movies. With this film, the director’s artistry and humanist ideology spectacularly fused with the entertainment values of adventure films and comedies.

Life is just a dream.

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