Part of my Akira Kurosawa Marathon

If Dersu Uzala was a first step in Kurosawa’s comeback, Kagemusha marks his full triumphant return to worldwide success. It wasn’t an easy project though, it was riddled with financial problems (ultimately solved by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola who convinced Fox to help with the budget), clashes with the original main actor Shintaro Katsu and another elaborate shooting involving thousands of extras at one point.

Story
This film is based on historic characters, so all the intricate war plotting between different clans is taken from history. I must admit, not being knowledgeable about that history I was a bit confused as to which lord was fighting or allied with whom. However the main story is about the thief who at first only looks like Lord Shingen, but while pretending to be him (as a political decoy, i.e. a kagemusha) for an extended period of time, he slowly starts to become like him, to feel an obligation towards his subjects who actually died for him during a battle (some of them even knew he was a double, but died nonetheless to protect their clan and to honor the real Shingen). In fact the thief was so intent on being Shingen, that it proved his downfall (literally): he mounted Shingen’s horse, who knew he was a double and threw him off, exposing the ruse.

There’s also an interesting backstory about Shingen and his family, how he banished his father, killed his own son and fathered another son (Katsuyori) with a different clan, but not accepting him as his heir, instead naming his grandson. The conflict between Shingen and Katsuyori is explored after Shingen’s death, which brings to the ultimate defeat of the Takeda clan, when Katsuyori decides to attack their enemies, against his father’s dying wishes.

Identity
The theme of identity is thoughrly explored here, making me think about what truly defines us as people: is it the way we look? Our thoughts? Our desires? Or is it how other people see us, how we interact with them? The thief almost seems to be possessed by Shingen’s spirit, just by looking like him and pretending to be him. He effectively becomes him or something like his shadow, but as said in the film, once the man goes away, what happens to the shadow? Once the thief is discovered he is sent away (the chiefs are grateful to him for helping them with the ruse, but the servants who didn’t know about it feel cheated and hate the thief), but he keeps lingering around, still feeling loyal to Shingen and his clan. He can’t go back to his own life, he’s the shadow of a dead man. He dies hopelessly charging the enemy by himself, fulfilling a prophetic dream.

I wonder if Kurosawa himself was thinking about his own identity as a film director, as a critically acclaimed filmmaker who hadn’t been successful in over 10 years. Was he doubting himself? Was he trying to recapture his form with the return to his most successful genre? Luckily he was successful.

Epic Battles & Style
Visually Kurosawa is in great form here. The film starts by showing us three men who look very much alike, all wearing the same clothes and same hair and beard (see here). These are three different men though (played by two actors), showed perfectly in their positions in the frame: Shingen is higher up, his bother is sitting next to him, while the double is further down the frame and away from them.

The next scene shows us a muddied soldier (in muted colors) running through hundreds of other soldiers all wearing the color of their clan, four different colors. This is not only visually appealing but it also conveys information about Shingen’s army (which will become relevant in the final battle).

There are two main battles in this film that showed great command of camera work, shooting hundreds of extras and horses all moving in unison like an actual army. The battle of Takatenjin is very tense without even showing actual fighting. The fighting takes place off screen, but we see the thief as Shingen sitting on top of a hill, there just to show his presence and intimidate the enemies. At the same time the enemy does try to kill him from a distance, but he’s well protected and some of his guards are shot while shielding him.

The battle of Nagashino is just a massacre. Katsuyori sends his troops to their death, too proud to admit defeat, especially to admit that his father was right not wanting to attack his enemies. We finally see how the Takeda army works (previously described to Shingen’s grandson and the thief himself): there are three divisions, wind (black), forest (green), fire (red). Katsuyori sends these divisions to die one by one, shot down by a huge line of rifles behind a wooden gate. We actually only see the armies charge, cut to the rifles shooting, but we don’t see the armies being shot. We only see the resulting devastation after the shooting stopped. Thousands of soldiers and their horses lying on the ground, bleeding to death or already dead. It’s a long sequence in slow motion, but it’s necessary to really take in the devastation and the foolishness of Katsuyori.

The battles are obviously the biggest scenes, but there are so many other magnificent visuals. Kurosawa actually made many paintings about this story even before he made the film. This is best represented in the dream sequence, where the background literally looks like a painting, which was apparently actually painted by Kurosawa himself. His framing is impeccable as usual, check out this one, or this shot of the rainbow. You could literally take a screenshot any time during the film and it’d look gorgeous. Kurosawa even manages to show an extended scene of a Noh play, as if he wanted to show young people (and foreigners) how much he appreciates this old form of storytelling.

Conclusion
There’s a lot going on in this film that I didn’t have time to mention (it’s Shimura’s last film with Kurosawa), which is why it’s such an epic film and I will rewatch this many times in the future. The success of this film is undeniable, both in Japan and internationally. It won accolades everywhere and earned a big chunk of money. While most critics (including Kurosawa himself) regard this as a trial run for his next movie Ran, I think this is a visual masterpiece by itself.