What A Nightmare Comes From This Burden

Rating: 9/10 (14 February 2015)

The smoke in "Kagemusha" lingers in my mind, whether it comes from the morning fog over a lake, or the end of a barrel from a gun in its spectacular battle sequences. Tatsuya Nakadai plays both the Warlord and the Imposter, and how captivating he remains during this plight. Though Toho Studios couldn't afford to complete the movie, longtime Kurosawa enthusiasts George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola convinced 20th Century Fox to pay the remaining budget for international distribution rights. Lucas and Coppola were awarded executive producer credits.
Set in the Sengoku period of Japan, a thief is spared death and taught to impersonate a dying warlord in order to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the vulnerable clan for the next few years. Though initially reluctant and unworthy, the imposter begins to earn the clans respect and comes to enjoy the love of his people and his position. The story is based on daimyo Takeda Shingen, and the film culminates with a stunning portrayal of the 1575 Battle of Nagashino.
The colours of this movie are beautiful, the highlight being the unforgettable "nightmare" sequence in all its gorgeous silence. Shintaro Katsu (Famous for playing blind blade master "Zatoichi", for some 25 movies) was originally the lead, however he supposedly angered Kurosawa when he brought people along to film Kurosawa's directing abilities. This lead to the employment of Mr. Nakadai, and easily remains his best performance in his line of Kurosawa pictures. Sure he already appeared as the Uber cool gunman in "Yojimbo" (1961), and would also go on to portray a heartbreaking rendition of insanity in "Ran" (1985). Here he is two separate people imitating the other one seamlessly. Being a 3 hour picture and in terms of pacing it is possibly the slowest of Kurosawa's filmography, and I think 20 minutes of this movie could be removed and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. With all that said though, "Kagemusha" won the 1980 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and I still remember all of its imagery vividly.
Final Verdict: One of Kurosawa's last great epics, and certainly one of his period drama's worth watching. 9/10.