"Kagemusha" (1980)

Rating: 10/10 (10 July 2012)

Akira Kurosawa's 180-minute, 1980 "comeback" film "Kagemusha" is one of the director's most ambitious films. Like I already stated, it clocks in at 180 minutes, but the film is never once boring. Having watched his later "Ran" (1985) yesterday and then having watched this movie today, "Kagemusha" is very much a "dress rehearsal" for "Ran" since it can be seen that many ideas/themes from this film were later used on "Ran." (Having watched both movies, however, I can conclude that "Ran" is the better movie.) "Kagemusha" (which means "shadow warrior") and is set over the course of a two-year period between 1573 and 1575 in Japan, concerns a petty, unkempt thief (Tatsuya Nakadai) who is plucked from imminent execution to be the double for the 16th-century warlord Shingen Takeda (also played by Nakadai), due to his striking resemblance to him. When Shingen unexpectedly expires, the thief is forced to take his position as leader of the Takeda Clan. This could have been an amusing comedy, but Kurosawa was too smart for that, and his scope of the material went way beyond what would typically be silly Hollywood comedic theatrics, like a comedy about role-/body-swapping (even though Kurosawa sought financial backing from American filmmakers George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola - two well-known admirers of his from the United States who are also well-known admirers of his impressive body of work over the decades). The main theme of "Kagemusha" is the battle between illusion and reality: The Double effectively deceives a great many people with the illusion that he is the real Shingen (including his grandson, mistresses, and sworn arch-rivals), and the real Shingen's generals (including his brother Nobukado - played by Tsutomu Yamazaki - who also bears an uncanny resemblance to his late brother) must keep up the elaborate charade - while also somehow managing to keep The Double out of trouble and keep away anyone from discovering their ruse. The film ends with an epic, large-scale massacre marking the downfall of the Takeda Clan, but the magic there is that we never actually see any real combat. Instead, we rely on the horrified reactions of the characters as they witness the unrelenting bloodshed of battle. It's a truly powerful moment in a film that never ceases to cause wonder and stir up strong emotions about the enormous "responsibilities" that come with such elaborate deception and the swift fall from power.
10/10