Kagemusha Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: Kagemusha
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Year: 1980
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese

In his later life Akira Kurosawa experienced great hardship, mainly because he could not find financial backing for his films. The great Director alienated the Japanese film industry, and not even the public was on his side. He had tried to make smaller films, like Dodes'ka-den, but they were ultimately box office failures. He would try to commit suicide, but failed. Kagemusha became his obsession, eventually he was finally able to make it only when major Hollywood Directors Francis Ford Coppolla and Martin Scorsese decided to help with financing.

In the picture, A petty thief (Tatsuya Nakadi) with an utter resemblance to a samurai warlord is hired as the lord's double. When the warlord later dies the thief is forced to take up arms in his place.

In his old age Kurosawa would turn to a pastime of his youth: painting. He was a great artist, and his visual imagination translated well onto the screen. Kagemusha is rich with impressive visuals, as well as stunning colors. Most of the film's scenes appear to be pulled directly from the imagination, unfiltered and free from the shackles of reality. It's is as Shakesperean as Throne of Blood, but perhaps more of an epic.

Armies of thousands throw themselves at the arms of death, for the sake of their pride. Epic battles wage on, glorifying the feudal samurai system. Kagemusha is an incredibly complex film about the power of belief  and the nature of a false hope. The samurai base their hope entirely on the fact that their warlord is alive, but when that belief is shattered real destruction occurs.

In conclusion, though Kagemusha is a decent film it suffers from a long running time and the fact that it's overshadowed by an even greater Samurai epic made a few years later called Ran. It's incredibly well made, but ultimately would have been forgotten if not for The Criterion Collection. The picture certainly has a body, but it has no legs. 3.5/5