Many Troubles Boiled Down to a Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2018)

Note: Japanese names are written family name first, given last.
Being a geezer Japanese, I remember so many KAGEMUSHA moments from my high school years. The film got its first negative news, or free publicity, if you will, when the star of the film Katsu Shintaro brought a video camera to the Toho studio. Katsu claimed he wanted to check his acting through the video. Kurosawa Akira told him, in a paraphrase, I'm the director watching your acting, and the film's cinematographer properly films your acting. Katsu, was known for his temperament, so was Kurosawa, whose print media's favorite nickname was Emperor Kurosawa.
You need to know, the script was written for Katsu Shintaro, playing both Takeda Shingen, a real historical figure, and his "kagemusha," literally meaning shadow warrior, or double. The artist Ikeda Masuo, after watching it in a pre-release screening in a theater claimed the script was obviously written for Katsu, basically saying it was a flop, which I strongly disagree.
Katsu Shintaro was known for being able to play both comical characters and straight serious face characters, whereas Nakadai Tatsuya, who ended up playing the two roles was known as serious actor both on the big screen and in theater performances.
Since then, film fans had to wait and wait for the release. During the wait time, the trailer made from an outtake was shown with the Franz von Suppé's Light Cavalry Overture. I have no idea how many gazillions of times I saw the trailer. It was as bad as the Close Encounters of the Third Kind trailer.
About a good one year later, KAGEMUSHA's release date was set, but, if I remember correctly, Toho had to delay the date by two weeks. It was due to nagging postproduction matter. This is why the Japanese version of the film is longer by 19 or 20 mins. Reportedly, Kurosawa said he didn't have enough time to edit the film, cutting it down to shorten the finally product, which he did before its release in the United States. That means KAGEMUSHA went through two postproductions.
Honda Ishiro, known for directing the original GODZILLA movie, as well as Toho's sci-fi and kaiju monster films acted as the lead of assistant directors, out of his friendship with Kurosawa. Personally, I believe Honda's contribution was great. As shown in an NHK documentary program, Kurosawa would yell and shout and holler at even a veteran actor Ohtaki Hideji, when the director is frustrated multiple actors didn't get where they should stand and how they walk, I assume there would had been no time for order-taking from Emperor Kurosawa for young assistant directors on minutiae.
Recently, the film went through a 4K restoration process, remixing the sound, which was shown on a Japanese-film only channel on cable television, Nihon Eiga Semmon Channel, down converted to 2K. My only nuisance was the sound effects were done by Toho studio's sound effects Dept., meaning same sounds that are familiar in other Toho movies. No Skywalker Sound.
In the end, Kagemusha becomes homeless and dies. The body floats down in a river, face down. The lead actor Nakadai Tatsuya confirmed the body was himself, but he cannot swim because he grew up in the age of the Pacific War, which provided no swimming lessons at school.
I find movies like KAGEMUSHA and RAN are like Luchino Visconti movies. I did not get thematic matters and conflicts depicted as a teenager/young adult, but now, decades later, I get what they were doing. Blessing for an old film buff like me.