Kurosawa's return to the samurai film

Rating: 9/10 (26 December 1998)

Five years after Dersu Uzala more hard times began to fall on Kurosawa. He couldn't find funding from any studio and that's when two of his greatest admirers came to his aid. None other than George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola. The two helped him make Kagemusha.
Kagemusha is another beautiful epic film set in feudal Japan. Shingen Takeda (Tatsuya Nakadai) is a powerful warlord who has many doubles that he uses during battles in order to give the opposing armies a sense that he is all powerful, always there watching over his men. Suddenly the real Shingen is killed and a new double is sent in to replace him. Unfortunately this new double is nothing but a thief and knows nothing about being a warlord. Soon more problems arise around trying to conceal his identity and a decision must be made.
Kagemusha marked Kurosawa's return to the genre of film that he helped shape, the samurai film