User Reviews

What happens to the doppelganger when the original dies? Does he flitter out of existence or does he find his own. Kagemusha (shadow warrior in Japanese) is the story of a thief who is to be hanged, but is saved by a warlord's brother, Katsuyori Takeda, because of a peculiar resemblance to the king Shingen Takeda. Tatsuya Nakadai brilliantly plays both roles of Shingen and the thief. The thief is trained to fill in as Shingen's double, a position previously played by his brother Katsuyori. Shingen receives a mortal wound during a siege and the Takeda Clan retreat. His dying wish is that he wants his death not to be known for at least three years. Kagemusha eventually acquiesces to the role of not just doubling for the king, but being a figurehead twenty-four hours a day.

The intimate circle of Shingen's family and guard knows about the double. They advise him about how to be like Shingen. He plays the part well. Shingen's son Nobukado, who knows that he is the double, is convinced that his father did this to spite him. Nobukado was passed over as king and that position was granted to Shingen's grandson and Nobukado's son Takemaru as soon as he reaches of mature age. Later in the film, we realize that Shingen did this because Nobukado is too aggressive and is not leader material, not to spite him. The backing of Kagemusha helped Nobukado's one great military victory. Nobukado would forever be in Shingen's shadow.

The relationships between the thief and the Lord's men make this a fascinating film. There is a rich tapestry of multidimensional characters. To some critics the action was too slow. It was not as fast paced as The Seven Samurai or Yojimbo. I think it is a mature film from a maturing director who would go on to direct another of my favorite films Ran. This film was nominated for two academy awards and would co-win the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The juxtaposition between the titanic and minute is a favorite concept of Kurosawa. Stolid men have tragic faults. Beggars can be kings.

Kurosawa is one of the world's most famous directors. Yet in the 1980's, he did not get much respect from his home country Japan. He had not had released a film since 1975 -- the beautiful and brilliant Dersu Uzala and he was reportedly suicidal. This film would not have been made if it were not for George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola whom helped finance this film. Lucas has always been a big fan of Kurosawa. Star Wars was partially influenced by Kurosawa's film The Hidden Fortress. I am a big fan of Kurosawa too. His films always have the most beautiful cinematography, intricate plots and grand characters. Kagemusha is no exception.

Akira Kurosawa is certainly one of the most important directors who ever lived. Most of his most famous films were made in the 50s and 60s. Rashomon, Ikiru, Yojimbo, and The Seven Samurai may be the four most famous films he made, and they were all in black and white. That format was wonderful. His films had a definitive look in that era.

I would like to suggest, though, that he was the single best director of the color image who has existed thus far (whose work I am familiar with). I have only seen two of his color films (I don't even know how many he made), this film and Ran, but his sense of color in these two films is exquisite. I had to pause it several times during Kagemusha just to stare at the beautiful composition.

I personally think that Kurosawa's talents rested mainly in the technical aspects of his films rather than the content (and I'm sure many people would argue against me here). So as for the film itself, I'd give it a 9/10 for two reasons. I was only emotionally involved during small sections of the film (the end was particularly powerful), and the story was somewhat difficult to follow (I was confused during Yojimbo and The Seven Samurai, too). I prefer Ran to this film (and to all the other films of his I've seen, which include Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo). Still, Kagemusha is very good.

I am a fan of Kurosawa and have seen many of his films many times. There is a sweep and an ache to Kagemusha that is genuine and has remained in my heart's memory. Unlike Ran, it is not Shakespearean. Unlike Seven Samurai, my favorite all-time film and I believe the best film ever made, it is not a western.

Although epic, it is about a sweet and rueful soul swallowed by karma and history. It is redemptive without overt sentiment, and the lead performance by Tatsuya Nakadai is nuanced and unforgettable.

I will always remember this film, not for its complexity or savagery, but for the simplest moments between Lord and subject, between the highest self and the lowest self, and most particularly, the very real pain of a man caught in the vise of his own life and death.

This is a great epic of war and a film of great emotion. At the center is a man who has nothing. He is thrust into a world he didn't create. He is a petty thief and really would like to just get on with his life. What he also has is great loyalty to his now deceased lord, and despite his great concern for his ability to carry it off, he agrees to the position. He has to know that at some point this will all come crashing down. The Samurai code makes it so that he has few options. He runs the war the best he can but occasionally falls victim to who he is. Even with advisers watching his every move, he becomes so much a part of the entire picture that he is left to destroy himself, and, in the process, the clan that he represents. The battle scenes are remindful of the other huge films like "Ran" and "Throne of Blood." They sweep across the screen with the flag carrying horsemen and the infantry fighting until there is nothing left but total carnage. Because of the complexity of the story and the wonderful acting, I would put this at or near the top of my Kurosawa list.

This film is one of Kurosawa's masterpieces and gives an profound insight in the pre-Tokugawa period of Japan. Especially remarkable is the very elaborated atmosphere of this film to which contribute the pure and simple dialogues and the use of very well-made sceneries. Kurosawa's favorite actor Tatsuya Nakadai is here at his best. Although the atmosphere is very elaborated and almost perfectly historic; tension of the viewer is heightened by the simplicity of the scenes. Kurosawa leaves certain parts to the viewer's imagination rather than showing it. The movie is highly philosophical as well as emotionally touching and presents the soul of the way of samurai and Japan's old samurai system much better and more serious than countless cheap- and bad-made martial arts movies about samurai. This is a warning to all who expect fast martial arts action and blood covered katana. This film is a Kurosawa-style mixture between opulent costume- drama, a philosophic and tragic story and the sensitivity only Kurosawa has displaying Japan's traditional way-of-life.

I saw the director's cut about twenty years after I first saw the film. Kagemusha is as magnificent now as before, but what has changed in the meantime is my appreciation of the meaning of Shakespeare's plays. The history plays and most of the tragedies were about the political dilemmas facing the new Tudor state. The Elizabethan audience sat on the edge of their seats waiting to see how political order might be restored once it had been set in disarray. The Wars of the Roses sequence culminates in the late political tragedies -- Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet and Lear. The question is always the same. How is an impersonal modern state possible when its leader is a person, the King? Or is rule by office compatible with the human flaws of the person occupying it? Shakespeare was the client of a conservative aristocratic faction, no rabble-rousing democrat he. But he went so deep into this political question in the course of writing all his plays that he dug deeper into this core issue of modern politics than anyone since.

Kurosawa approaches the same question through the notion of a double,"the shadow of a warrior", Kagemusha. Here the contrast between the office of the political leader and its personal incumbent is brought vividly to life in so many ways. The period is the Japanese equivalent of England's War of the Roses, the transition from feudalism to the beginnings of the modern state. The losing side in this case is the one that tries to resolve the contradiction of personality and office by a subterfuge, a thief masquerading as a lord. The winning side and founder of the Japanese state is the Tokugawa clan. The climactic battle symbolises the passage from traditional to modern warfare, as the horses of the losers are mown down by fusillades of gunfire. The credits run as the corpse of the double crosses a submerged flag whose abstract symbolism shows us which aspects of feudalism the modern state will borrow. Personality is vanquished.

The aesthetic vision animating this movie is incredible. There is so much to look at and admire, perhaps interpret. One striking feature for me was the persistent strong breeze ripping through the banners, a symbol of the winds of change running through 16th century Japan, contemporary to Shakespeare's period. Because this drama was made by and for the modern cinema, in many ways Kurosawa's masterpiece is better than Shakespeare.

I have seen nearly all of Akira Kurosawa's films, so my opinion shouldn't be completely ignored. Although I am in the distinct minority, I didn't particularly like KAGEMUSHA. Yes, it was big and beautiful and had great scope but it was also emotionally sterile and bore little resemblance to Kurosawa's earlier, more famous works. The same, by the way, can be said about RAN. Both films had relatively HUGE budgets but the dialog and connectedness between the characters was lacking. As a result, I felt pretty bored when I watched both of them--especially this film.

So, if you compare these two movies with THE 7 SAMURAI or YOJIMBO, for example, they seem VERY different. These older films, though not filmed in color, had a greater sense of humanity about them--great importance was placed on the INTERRELATIONSHIPS between the characters AND the camera work was very different, with more closeups and a more intimate feel. So, while RAN and KAGEMUSHA were pretty to look at, I felt much more detached from them and cared much less about the characters. I really think the problem with these two movies, and the reason I like them less than the average Kurosawa film, was that the big budget in these later films actually HURT them, as too much emphasis was placed on effects and dialog was purely secondary.

So, in summary, I am the odd-ball that didn't love this film. You will probably disagree and might be tempted to mark my review as "not helpful", as the reviews on IMDb are generally glowing. But having seen many Japanese films, I can't help but feel there are better films out there waiting to be seen. Most any other Kurosawa film, and films by other great directors (such as THE SAMURAI TRILOGY, the films of Yasujiro Ozu) are more appealing to me. I think the popularity of this film is in part due to its having been seen in theaters by more Westerners than any other of Kurosawa's films--SEEK OUT HIS EARLIER AND MID-CAREER FILMS--they are better and far more emotionally involving.

This film is set at the beginning of the Warring States era of Japanese history, which most Japanese film viewers would have studied extensively in school. Unfortunately for Western viewers, these historical aspects are therefore given little exposition, making some aspects of the film hard to follow for those without such schooling.

Here are some attempts at "liner notes" to help in understanding and appreciating the film (warning: I'm not Japanese and have not had Japanese schooling):

* Shingen Takeda is a warlord vying for power with Oda Nobunaga and his ally Ieyasu.

* Takeda had a reputation for the military prowess of their cavalry. Thus, you see lots and lots of horses featured in the film. Horses were important to the clan. Takeda's symbol is the four diamonds (the exact symbolism is explained in the film). Just as in the West, use of such heraldic symbols in war banners and clothing was very useful in figuring out who is who. So, keep in mind that when you see the four diamonds, whatever their color, those are Takeda forces.

* Nobunaga was known for his adoption of many Western ways. This is why he wears European-influenced clothing and doesn't have the standard samurai haircut (basically, shaved head, topknot). Nobunaga was also known for his use of rifles in battles. So, one of the themes of the film is the struggle of tradition against the influence of the West (in the film, mostly shown through the use of guns although their is also a brief shot of some clerics). Nobunaga's symbol is the five-sectioned flower. Nobunaga is also known for his love of Noh dramas, a dramatic form incorporating difficult-to-understand archaic language and restrained, careful action, somewhat like the film "Kagemusha" itself. Nobunaga launches into a bit of Noh at one point in the film.

* At this early time, Ieyasu was mostly known for his political survival skills. Ieyasu is probably best known to American viewers as the basis for James Clavell's Toranaga character in "Shogun". (Nobunaga is also in "Shogun" albeit as a minor character and under a different name.) The events in this film take place roughly two decades prior to those in "Shogun".

* Takeda's generals each also have their own symbols to help you track them. One of Ieyasu's generals also has a "symbol" (actually, the character "hon", which IMDb will not display).

* Haircuts are a sign of rank. This is why all the lords (except Nobunaga) have a certain haircut, all the pages have the same hairstyle, and so forth. The haircut~rank connection figures even more strongly and explicitly in Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood".

* Japanese men during this period often changed their names as their status changed. For example, in "Toshie to Matsu", Toshie, who is one of Nobunaga's (and, later, Hideyoshi's and Ieyasu's) generals/lords is granted the honor of changing his name to one which incorporates part of his lord's name into his own. Keep this in mind as Takeda's son discusses the use of his father's name and symbol.

* Miltary success and bravery in battle were key means of advancement. Thus, military leaders of this time are often depicted as ever-volunteering to do brave (even stupidly brave) things in hopes of gaining greater status. In "Kagemusha", Takeda's son is desperate for such advancement.

A petty thief is pulled from crucifixion and made to be the double of the ruthless powerful warlord Shingen Takeda. Both the warlord and his brother Nobukado are impressed. It's 1573. Shingen is mortally wounded at a siege. He orders his generals to hide his death for at least 3 years and not to advance from their domain. When he dies in secret, Nobukado proposes to use the double. However the double is uncontrollable and he discovers the dead body. Meanwhile spies are looking for the truth.

Director Akira Kurosawa has made a meticulous movie. It is big. There are lots of costumes. The battles have lots of participants. It's real. It is 3 hours and lots of it is very static. It's very old school in that respect. The action isn't very visceral. It is more cerebral. What I mean is that it is visions of formation. There are few actual fights and little blood or gore. The big battle is seen not in the action but in the reaction of the people seeing the action. It is a different way of doing action. It's poetic but also a bit sterile.

Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" (1980) is one of those tremendously long films that somehow never drags. The plot is about a petty thief who is about to be crucified but is saved by a Japanese warlord called Lord Shingen because of his amazing resemblance to him and is used as a double. When the Lord is killed, and because of a plan laid by Shingen before he died, the so-call "Shadow Warrior" must impersonate the Lord for three years. Aided by this clever plot, Kurosawa shows us Japanese court ritual, with help by a brilliant performance by Tatsuya Nakadai, gives a fascinating picture of fifteenth century Japan. This a fabulous movie, with a particularly moving ending, that shows just how great Akira Kurosawa is.

This one is known by many to be a 'warm-up' to "Ran". Perhaps that should have been a warning, as I wasn't a huge fan of that film. But still, I remained interested in this one and it looked good. But lordy did I find this one a big, beautiful, empty bore. I mean, sure, the visuals are crazy good at times, lovely colors, and it is just in general a great looking movie. Excellent design and all. But at the same time I sort of feel that's all that was to it.

The performances here aren't nearly as stilted or obnoxious as some in "Ran", and in fact I really like Tatsuya Nakadai in this. The problem here is that I don't think anyone involved was given much interesting material to work with. It isn't that I don't think there is an interesting story to be told here, but I sort of see this movie as a missed opportunity. Instead of focusing more on developing the character of the impersonator, too much time is spent on scenes of rival sides scheming and questioning if Shingen is alive or dead. Things seem to only be addressed on the surface and the character interactions are never given enough time to breath. More importantly, this might not be as much of a problem if the film didn't move at such an excruciating pace. Some films are deliberately paced a certain way and some films are slow-burning, but this one just feels slow, period, and without much of a purpose most of the time.

Additionally, I often found that scenes and drama were laboriously set-up within the story, then those scenes slowly unfolded, and then there is little actual pay-off. Take for instance the section of the story where the one Clan leader decides to send a priest carrying medicine as a supposed "gift" to Shingen, but really they want to find out if Shingen is actually alive or not. This is thoroughly explained by the Clan leader. Then when the priest arrives, Shingen (or the impersonator) and his fellow leaders discuss how they KNOW what the other Clan leader is up to, and how they must hide it! Then when the scene actually HAPPENS there ends up being little to no tension and nothing actually comes of it. It's just completely frustrating to watch! Scenes go on forever and sometimes the film just feels dead. All of a sudden then we'll cut to a scene of rousing music as men on horse-back prepare for battle. It felt like it all had no real flow at all. Even the battle scenes were really disappointing -- the ones at night were very hard to follow.

I will admit that the movie can be a stunner at times. That ending is really something, but even then it feels like the film is shouting "LOOK HOW EPIC AND TRAGIC I AM!!!!" Sort of like "Ran", really. But in retrospect, this film makes me appreciate "Ran" even more, for where that movie sort of falls apart for me in its later stages, at least it had a little umpf to it. "Kagemusha" feels like it never actually gets off the ground. Kurosawa is a great filmmaker, but I can't get behind this one.

After spending a decade (or so) in solitary confinement from the Japanese Film Industry Akira Kurosawa returns to make his semi-masterpiece "Kagemusha", which he called a dress-rehearsal for "Ran", made in 1985.

Kagemusha is, probably, the best example of cinematic overkill where nobody actually cares. Cinematic overkill is when someone constructs a complex multi-layered movie, stage epic-battles, introduce likeable and complex characters without having a very complicated message. The message of "Kagemusha" is simply this: If you pretend long enough to be something else you'll become it. Too simple, maybe, for what's delivered.

Not that "Kagemusha" is a bad movie. It's haunting, it's spectacular and it's just great. I keep thinking about it over and over. I can't get it out of my head. Simply put "Kagemusha" is a masterpiece, albeit one up for debate. Not all Kurosawa fans would like it, but that's they're business. Personally, this is one of the movies currently that I'd really like to see again.

PS: Thank goodness for George Lucas and Francis Ford Copolla who funded this movie.

This is the best movie I have ever seen. In any language from any culture. I thought so when I first saw it thirty years ago and I still think so now, despite not being able to see it in its original mind- blowing wide-screen form. It is not just one of the most visually beautiful films ever done. The positive reviews are all accurate, but many focus too much on Kurosawa in general rather than on the particular theme of this film, which is closely tied to Japanese history and ideals, and which unites all the specific beauties of text and technique. This is not simply a film about historical belatedness (a lament that the ancient idea of heroes is now exposed by the modern world to be a hollow fantasy, as Ebert and other suggest), or the Shakespearian tragedy of inevitable discrepancy between individual and historical role, as in Henry V), although the film includes something of these elements. It is more--a beautiful elegy to a positive feudal ideal of leadership that goes beyond individual power to sacrifice for country--embodied in the figure of Takeda Shingin. Great tactician, unsurpassed "rider" of horses and women, inspiring and fearsome military leader, he is also a student of the Sutras and a man who "stepped right into people's hearts," as one of his aides says. The opening scene shows he listens to criticism and has a sense of irony about himself; when the thief who is to play his "double" accuses him of being a murderer, he agrees but says he will do anything to unite the country in order to prevent endless war and bloodshed. The same actor plays the lord and his double with incredible depth and subtlety. Shingin is killed (by a gun) early in the movie; as he is dying he tells his generals not to let anyone know he's dead for three years--to let the thief replace him, so as to give the clan time to prepare for confrontation with the western- armed enemy--and, given that his clan is not armed with western firearms, not to move out of its own territory. The double or "shadow warrior" who takes his place begins to identify with the role and finds out that literal crucifixion (for theft) would have been nothing compared to the loneliness at the top where the weight of the world is on the leader's shoulders. Every moment of his existence requires that he sacrifice everything personal to a role that no one can ever fill perfectly, and that is now bereft of the one man who came closest to doing so. The kagemusha doesn't have Shingin's "riding ability" or his wounds or the depth of self-understanding to fill the lord's role and, when he cockily believes he can do so for a moment, he is discovered and thrown out. Neither he, nor any modern man trying to live an identity larger than himself--including the artist who, like the kagemusha, is creating a shadow of the ideal--can replace this feudal ideal which was superseded (literally, massacred at the end) starting over 400 years ago by Christianized and technologized decadence, represented by Nobunaga and Ieyasu. The kagemusha learns slowly, as we do, what the ABSENCE of the irreplaceable Shingin means to his people and symbolically to Japan. Many scenes build up as if to a great battle or political confrontation, and the generals keep the show going, but it is all hollow--the leader is gone. Shingin's ambitious and over-eager son then leads the Takeda clan out of the mountains--to a destruction by western technology reminiscent of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (especially since the historical battle was at a place named Nagashino). The point of the film is to show a lost ideal of the past which can never be regained and without which everything afterward is a shadow, like the kagemusha ("shadow warrior"). The double (like the artist) seems possessed with Shingen's ghost in the last scenes as he watches in horror while the son, in a self-centered Oedipal frenzy, destroys the flower of his people by moving beyond the legitimate limits of his territory and his scope, and the double can only throw a futile spear at the modern weaponry which destroys him. But a shadow identity from a meaningful past is better than none at all (Kurosawa shores these fragments against modern ruins at least as well as T.S. Eliot in "The Waste Land").

I am a big fan of Akira Kurosawa, and it has to be said that even Kagemusha, the worst Kurosawa film I have seen so far, is miles ahead of most current Hollywood cinema. But overall, this is something of a disappointment. Although the story itself is not bad, and it is all filmed majestically, the editing and pace of the movie is far too slow. The full version is almost three hours long, when the American version is way too long at only 2.5 hours. This really is the only gripe about the film, and if it were shorter it would be worthy of an 8 or 9 out of ten. As it is, this is not recommended unless you have a lot of patience.

Akira Kurosawa's `Kagemusha' (1980) is one of my favorite films, and has great resonance for me. I empathize deeply with this thief who assumes the position of double for a very important warlord - a role that reaches epic dimensions as this `shadow warrior' eventually loses his own identity, becoming a sacrificial figure in the demise of one of Japan's great sixteenth century clans.

Kurosawa's `Rashomon' (1950) explored the nature of perspective, truth, and reality, and may have resonated with the Japanese people of the decade in which it had been made - a time of recovery from the devastating defeat in World War II, and the wrenching pain associated with the failure of traditional Japanese moral, ethical and social values. `Rashomon' raised the specter of individuality at its most basic level - within the human psyche. Thirty years later much has changed in Japan, and Kurosawa was reaching the end of his career. `Red Beard' (1965) marked the end of a most important part of the director's creative production. Though critically acclaimed, he had to fight harder and harder for funding for each new project. Discouraged with 20th Century Fox, with whom he had agreed to work as director of the Japanese sequences for `Tora! Tora! Tora!' (1965), he dropped out of the project. A production company he had formed with three other prominent Japanese directors (The Four Musketeers: Keisuke Kinoshita, Musaki Kobayashi, Kon Ichikawa, and Kurosawa) produced but one film, Kurosawa's `Dodeskaden' (1970), a box office failure. Kurosawa even failed with an attempted suicide.

At the invitation of Mosfilm following and during his recovery, he made his only non-Japanese film, `Dersu Uzala', which was released in 1974. There followed another long period of inactivity before American directors, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, long time admirers, helped secure funding for `Kagemusha' as a joint project of Toho Films and 20th Century Fox which was released in Kurosawa's 70th year. Once again he depicts the suppression of the individual to the social order. Once again he explores these old values being replaced-but this time the view is nostalgic.

He chose an historical subject - the great battle of Nagashino in May of 1575 in which the forces of Shingen Takeda were annihilated by the coalition armies of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu. It was a period in Japanese history when all three warlords were vying for control of the old Japanese capital of Kyoto. Shingen had been legendary in battle, carrying banners with the legend, `Swift as the wind, quiet as the forest, fierce as fire, and immovable as a mountain.' (These four attributes are represented in the diamond shape of the Takeda banner, which is in turn composed of four diamonds). But the Nobunaga-Ieyasu forces used muskets on a large scale, and the result was a catastrophic loss for the Takeda clan.

`Kagemusha' opens with a long shot of Shingen flanked to his right by his brother, Nobukado Takeda, with the thief to his left in the foreground. We see that Nobukado has enough resemblance to Shingen that he has served from time to time as his `kagemusha' (double, or shadow). Recently he had discovered a common thief who was about to be executed (Curiously, the subtitle translation is `crucified', a Christian term that I doubt is in the original. Christian references of this nature are used in the subtitle translations later with a reference to a `cross he has to bear'.). Nobukado is struck by the uncanny resemblance between the thief and Shingen, and he has brought him, bound, to be interviewed. The entire sequence, which takes several minutes, is done entirely in a single take. Here is a place where the impact is lost in television, particularly in the commercial VHS copy which crops off part of the brother's image.

The thief is a proud man-demonstrating a strong sense of personal honor despite being a criminal. Shingen, who is duly impressed with the likeness, is disappointed to find it in one who is such a crooked reprobate as to deserve execution. The thief scoffs at this, pointing out that while he has stolen for a petty subsistence, Shingen has been responsible for the deaths of thousands in his military campaigns. Along side the crimes of the warlords, he proclaims, his petty thievery is meaningless. This act of defiance impresses Shingen, who nonetheless, excuses his own excesses as necessary to bring about a unified Japan. The thief is trained as a kagemusha, and the story unfolds.

Some have suggested that `Kagemusha' would have been a better film if Kurosawa had once again turned to Toshiro Mifune for the part of the thief. Instead he chose Tatsuya Nakadai, who had been for a time Mifune's chief rival as a samurai film star, and had even appeared in several films with him (notably `The Seven Samurai,' `Yojimbo,' and `Sanjuro.' Nakadai had been associated strongly with Musaki Kobayashi, and actually came to this role after Kurosawa's initial choice, Shitarô Katsu had to drop out.). But I do not find fault with the selection. Mifune, with his powerful screen presence, might have taken over the film. `Kagemusha' is about a man who loses himself to the power of another. Nakadai, for me, gives a very moving and sensitive performance. Those final scenes are unforgettable, not only for the devastating impact of fire arms on an army of medieval weapons, but for Nakadai's haunting transformation.

After six years of break -his last great film, "Dersu Uzala" had made in the Soviet Union in 1974 - Akira Kurosawa had the support of influential Americans Francis Coppola and George Lucas, who interceded with the Fox to that funded his project "Kagemusha" in exchange for worldwide distribution rights of the film.

Everything that came after the film had the technical aspect of a great production: Hundreds of extras, a carefully staged appropriate to the sixteenth century, apparel obtained from museum collections true, picture of high relief, a majestic soundtrack performed by a full symphony, and a protagonist of many carats and was Tatsuya Nakadai. They wanted to recreate the intricacies of power, the life of the great warlords with their rivalries, their struggles gut, their affections and passions, his stratagems… and his use of humans for its sole convenience. By the way, we have to have their protocols, their heavy meetings and their actions are sometimes too slow and monotonous. A perfect picture of a happy society disappeared, which, Kurosawa is able to look with loving eyes as critics.

The humble thief character, able to supplant the warlord Shingen Takeda, is charming and full history a warmth and human depth, as expected, the feudal lords never understand, and only Takemaru, the little heir to the throne, discovers the emotional force within him and get to share with him a sense emerged from the heart.

The film, in my view, is suffering in part by excessive floor meetings (I counted about a dozen in the first hour and a half), and not for the quality of the dialogues, the torpor may have reached more than one. The scene of the dream, however have excellent scenery, I also is not very eloquent, and two or three scenes, could well abandon some of his footage.

For these reasons, I believe, "Kagemusha" is enjoying half. In any case, I find no grounds for placing it among the highlights of the master Kurosawa.

While not in my top 5 Kurasawas(Seven Samurai, Ran, Ikiru, Yojimbo, The Hidden Fortress), it is a very impressive film in its own right. The use of colour and the camera work are absolutely wonderful, as is the delicacy and ambition of Kurasawa's direction and the hauntingly beautiful music. The last part of the film seemed rather rushed to me(though the very end is indeed powerful), but the rest of the story is very poignant, stirring stuff with a good mix of simplicity and complexity. The script is almost Shakespearean in quality, the characters are multidimensional with the relationship between the Lord's men and the thief Kagemusha's most fascinating assets and the lead performance of Tatsuya Nakadai is outstanding, as far as I'm concerned one of the finest lead performances of any Kurasawa film that isn't Toshio Mifune. In conclusion, not one of my favourite Kurasawas but still a great film with much to admire. 9/10 Bethany Cox

I confess I struggled with this film, despite adoring Kurosawa and its anti-war message. Men are fools to wage war, it tells us in a nutshell, leaders are false, decisions arbitrary, and countless people suffer as a result. How ironic is it that the impersonator's decision to stand his ground like a mountain, based on the real lord's precepts but somewhat blindly followed, ends up being better than those made by his successor. There are grand battle scenes with lots of extras and some occasional beautiful shots, but if I'm honest, I felt the film could have been half as long. The storytelling is too mechanical in its depiction of strategy amongst the various factions, feeling like a very masculine, old-school war film for much of its 180 minute run time, one where the presence of women is minimal. I just didn't feel the weight of the political intrigue or the emotions of the characters, perhaps with the exception of the feudal lord's son.

It was interesting to find out about the real-life Battle of Nagashino (though it seems the impersonator is fictional), and maybe if I had known the history or context better, it would have resonated more. One thing to beware of while watching it is to not confuse Nobukado (the brother) with Nobunaga (one of the enemies). I'd also say that Kurosawa did a much better job in all aspects of filmmaking just five years later with his devastating masterpiece 'Ran,' also an anti-war film, and would certainly recommend it over Kagemusha.

I have understand Kurosawa is a great director who has made some masterpieces in his lifetime. However, I fail to see the masterpiece in Kagemusha.

The story is very bland, and most of it revolves around a thief who has taken the position of a great Lord, due to the Lord's death. That could be an interesting scenario, but for some reason, it does not work in this film: could it be because the entire film pays too much attention to that? I don't know what this movie does wrong, but for a first time viewing, it is not the first to pick from Kurosawa's work. It seems a bit boring, perhaps. Maybe I am missing something, but this film lacks originality, plot, and the stunning sequences most Akira fans are used to. The film is not as visually stunning as some of his others, and could have included more interesting shots.

Why should we make such a big deal out of a lookalike? Big woop.