Kagemusha (1980)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.
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7 films that influenced Kagemusha
What critics say influenced Kagemusha
He made a smaller film, " Dodes'ka-den ," which was not successful.
In the context of the director’s biography, this shift seems to occur with a number of pivotal events: Kurosawa’s decisive split with his star, Toshiro Mifune; the financial failure of his film Dodes’ka-den and the independent company that produced it; his disastrous aesthetic impasse with the American producers of Tora! Tora! Tora!; and finally, his attempt at suicide.
If Dodes’ka-den , a flawed but deeply felt ensemble piece perched at the edge of financial ruin, signaled for many Japanese cinema titan Akira Kurasawa’s fallibility, then Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior) ushered him into the good graces often accorded aged artists who understandably fall back on the themes and variations that marked their earlier major works.
All of this makes for a conveniently schematic chronology that strangely echoes the structure of many of his films, such as Ikiru and High and Low.
All of this makes for a conveniently schematic chronology that strangely echoes the structure of many of his films, such as Ikiru and High and Low.
The Bad Sleep Well, Stray Dog, and the like have everything The Seven Samurai, Kagemusha, and his other large-scale films do—strong characters, brilliant staging, intriguing storylines—while also offering a window into life in postwar Japan.
In the context of the director’s biography, this shift seems to occur with a number of pivotal events: Kurosawa’s decisive split with his star, Toshiro Mifune; the financial failure of his film Dodes’ka-den and the independent company that produced it; his disastrous aesthetic impasse with the American producers of Tora! Tora! Tora!; and finally, his attempt at suicide.
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Kagemusha, much like the similarly overblown but handsomely mounted Lawrence of Arabia, is an epic with a cipher in its point position.
In this way, the film most resembles Throne of Blood in its thematic concerns.
He was backed by the Russians and went to Siberia to make the beautiful "Dersu Uzala" (1976), about a man of the wilderness.
(His previous film, 1975’s Dersu Uzala is more of a transitional work, with a naturalism and emphasis on character that are closer to the earlier films.)