Japanese legends and Valentine's history

I realised this week I’ve never watched an Akira Kurosawa movie, despite being well across his fame, legend and influence on the wider film world. Whether it’s Rashomon, Yojimbo or Seven Samurai, every film lover has their favourite film by Kurosawa, but somehow I’ve just never managed to see one yet. But to me, the most intriguing film of his might be The Hidden Fortress, from 1958.

It tells the story of two peasants who agree to escort a man and a woman across enemy lines in return for gold without knowing that he is a general and the woman is a princess. If that sounds familiar, it should because it has been often cited by George Lucas as one of his biggest influences on Star Wars!

And it was Valentine’s Day this week, for those of you who observe, don’t want a bar of it, or just couldn’t get away from it. Like a lot of these festivals, it has some quite strange origins, beginning of course with Saint Valentine, who was one (or possibly more than one) early Christian figure, executed and martyred after being persecuted by the Romans. HIs history is patchy and does not entirely match historical records, but that never stopped any of these things either…