Kagemusha

Even at my advanced age (I turned 46 yesterday) I'm still working my way through the classics I haven't seen, helped by my old pal Netflix. I've seen a lot of the Kurosawa classics, but had yet to catch up with Kagemusha, which I rented over the weekend.

Kagemusha, which means "shadow warrior," was released in 1980. It was Kurosawa's first film in five years, and almost died on the vine. Francis Coppola and George Lucas stepped in and secured the financing necessary for an international release. They appear in interviews in the supplementary material.

In doing a little reading on the film, Kagemusha is seen as minor Kurosawa. I enjoyed it, though it was a little slow-paced. It tells a story from sixteenth century Japan, during what was known as the Warring States period. The country was ruled by various warlords, each of whom vied for domination. Shingen is the ruler of the the Takeda clan. He regularly employs doubles, or shadow warriors, to avoid danger. His brother, who bears a certain resemblance, but not identical, comes across a thief who is going to be executed. The thief is a perfect double for Shingen, and is spared death to prove useful to the warlord.

When Shingen is wounded by a sniper, he asks that his death be kept secret for three years. The brother and the other retainers use the thief as a double, and much of the film is how they go about this. Shingen's grandson and mistresses are fooled, as are opposing warlords, who are skeptical but the thief manages to pull it off. Of course, sooner or later the ruse fails, and events escalate from there.

Kagemusha makes wonderful use of color, particularly in the uniforms of soldiers and in skyscapes. The screenplay is perhaps too over-detailed, as the film runs three hours, but I enjoyed the various situations the thief gets into, only to cover when suspicion is raised. The actor playing both roles is Tatsuya Nakadai, and I thought he was terrific. I then learned in the supplementary material that he was a last second replacement for the actor who was best known as Zoiche the Blind Swordsman. He wanted to videotape his scenes for an acting class, and Kurosawa refused.

Kurosawa would have one last triumph as a filmmaker, five years later, with Ran, so Kagemusha is kind of relegated to an after-thought. Compared to Ran, or Yojimbo, or the Seven Samurai, this is justified, but I thought was a well-done film on its own merits.