I've only seen one Kurosawa film, 7 samurai, and I loved it. How good is this film?

Worth a buy or a rent?

I would say it's worth a buy, but most of his films are hit or miss w/ a lot of people so you may want to rent it first.

A definite buy. :)

It's worth having and is the most enjoyable when the princess is "mute". ;)

excellent anamorphic transfer & the 3.0 soundtrack is very interesting & OH YEAH the film is a very good action/comedy!

I agree. The Princess had the most horrible voice, and all she would do was shriek. A great way to ruin a spectacular film. Still a favorite, though.

Excellent film, definitly a buy.

That kind of "shrieking" speech is exactly what they were talking about when they said they thought her speech might give her away. It's a manner of learned powerful speech in that culture in that period of history that was mainly only spoken by the upper classes. It denoted prestige and power. Since class divisions then were so definite, it would be a giveaway. People often say something about how the Samurai and other upper class people speak in those movies, as it's the way all Japanese people speak. But actually, notice that none of the peasants speak that way. Just another one of those culture things. It's amazing that a movie like The Hidden Fortress can still be such a great experience, especially considering that because of translation and our lack of understanding of that culture we're missing so much of the texture of the movie. Those movies are probably only operating at 75% capacity for us, whereas in the native language and culture it's 100%. The films are all the more amazing to me when I think of them that way.