Which Kurosawa film is based on a kidnapping plot?

Akira Kurosawa's film based on a kidnapping plot is High and Low. The 1963 police procedural follows wealthy executive Kingo Gondō after a kidnapper mistakenly abducts his chauffeur's son instead of Gondō's own child.

The film is loosely adapted from Evan Hunter's 1959 novel King's Ransom, but Kurosawa substantially reshaped the material. He turned the story into a study of class, morality, and social responsibility in modern Japan. Gondō lives in an elevated hillside home, while the investigation eventually descends into the city's poorer districts, giving the title a literal and social meaning.

The opening section is a tense chamber drama dominated by telephone calls and the ransom demand. After the exchange, the film becomes an expansive police investigation involving detectives, train routes, coded clues, and the kidnapper's drug-connected underworld. Toshiro Mifune plays Gondō, while Tatsuya Nakadai portrays the investigating inspector.

The other listed films involve crime, corruption, or troubled characters, but none centers on a kidnapping. High and Low was released in Japan on March 1, 1963, and is widely regarded as one of Kurosawa's major crime films.