Which Kurosawa film is set around a Tokyo shoe company executive named Kingo Gondo? The answer is High and Low.
High and Low, released in 1963, centers on Kingo Gondo, played by Toshiro Mifune. Gondo is a senior figure at National Shoes, where he is preparing a leveraged takeover because he believes the company should continue making durable shoes rather than chase profits through cheaper, lower-quality products.
His business crisis becomes a moral crisis when a kidnapper mistakenly abducts the chauffeur's son instead of Gondo's own child. The ransom demand threatens Gondo's financial plans, forcing him to choose between protecting his fortune and saving another family's child. The first half unfolds largely inside his hilltop home; the second becomes an intricate police investigation across Tokyo.
Kurosawa adapted the film loosely from Evan Hunter's 1959 novel King's Ransom, but expanded the story's class tensions and social critique. The title refers both to the physical contrast between Gondo's elevated home and the poorer city below and to the film's moral and economic divisions. It is widely regarded as one of Kurosawa's finest police procedurals.