Too much preparation

Rating: 8/10 (28 March 2005)

Kagemusha was to be a come-back film for Kurosawa in Japan, being the first film he made in his homeland in a decade. His last box-office success was Red Beard in 1965 which was followed by a derailed Runaway Train, a fiasco in his involvement with Tora!Tora!Tora!, and a devastating financial and personal loss from Dodes'kaden which culminated in his attempt at Suicide.
The Soviet Union hired him for a film of his choice, and he made the under-appreciated Dersu Uzala which brought him some acclaim, but little of the film-making opportunities he desperately needed.
His next film project was to be Ran, but he decided to make the more "Japanese-friendly" Kagemusha first. Backing proved to be difficult,and he toured internationally for several years with a series of paintings he made of the proposed film. Fortunately, this came to the attention of Coppola and Lucas who got the backing he needed to begin filming.
His first choice in the lead role was Shintaro Katsu, whose most famous role was as the blind swordsman Zatoichi, and who was also in serious need of a career boost. However, two great egos clashed on the first day of shooting, and Katsu either quit or was fired (depending on who's telling the story!) Several people urged Kurosawa to get Mifune to play the part of the double, but even after 15 years of estrangement, Kurosawa refused to even consider him. He went immediately to Nakadai, and rearranged the production schedule around Nakadai's previous commitments.
Herein lie the films' problems: A star who is miscast in a role written specifically with Katsu in mind, and everything pretty much storyboarded and prepared mentally years ahead of time at the expense of freshness and spontaneity.
Kagemusha ends up being a somewhat cold film and needs more than one viewing to warm up to it. The first time I saw it, I was a bit put off, but many of the scenes stuck in my mind and haunted me. This may not be Kurosawa's last GREAT film, but it may be his last GOOD one. Bravo to Criterion for restoring the 20 minutes of footage that Kurosawa himself cut out for the film's international release: this may not be a true "directors cut", but at least there is a complete dream sequence and the great Takasi Shimura's last screen appearance.