Kagemusha (1980) Kurosawa, the master visual story-teller (Blu-ray Review)

74 years old Akira Kurosawa was when he directed Kagemusha. And, funnily enough, the 1970s weren’t a kind decade to the master director with the highest-profile film, of the three he produced that decade, being the marginal Serbian Adventure Movie, Dersu Uzala. A point stressed in the extras of this new Criterion Collection blu-ray, both with the extra feature starring the 1980 film’s American producers – Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas – and the series of commercials he did for Suntory Whiskey (all featuring on the disc). Financing issues and being cast to the side for a decade aside, return he did, with one of his most sumptuous productions.

People with only a passing interest in Japanese cinema characterise Akira Kurosawa as “the king of samurai movies”, implying that there was little else that he did. This isn’t just off the mark, it is also wrong; if any director deserves that moniker it’s Hiroshi Inagaki with most of his filmography being comprised of Chanbara – to give them their Japanese name. With the exception of Yojimbo and Sanjuro, which feel akin to spiritual successors, the styles and stories he told where much more important than the samurai they often featured. Not one to tell the same story twice, how would a director who had been actively working for decades approach “Samurai Cinema” with a fresh approach? Simply put, he wouldn’t. Kagemusha is set in the late 1500s in the Sengoku Era and he approaches the age of samurai, warlords and vast battles from a political perspective. After all, he did create one of the best battle movies ever made with Seven Samurai, repeating the same trick would be utterly superfluous for a director in the twilight of his career. “Kagemusha” literally translates as Shadow Warrior, the Japanese term for a political decoy.

Originally planned as a role for Zatoichi veteran, Shintaro Katsu, Tatsuya Nakadai plays both Lord Shigen and the titular Kagemusha, a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate an ageing warlord whose last wish was to keep his sudden death a secret in order to avoid attacks from the Nobunaga and Ieyasu clans. Even though they’d much prefer to have his grandson take over as figurehead of the clan, the Shingen retainers are bound by their lord’s final wishes and reluctantly agree to have this imposter temporarily lead. Unexpectedly, the former thief appreciates life as Shingen, however, he is beleaguered by issue after issue with him having to convince everyone from the rank and file, the former lord’s mistresses, his grandson and horse that he is the now-deceased chief. A challenge he passes with varying degrees of success, yet, the challenge becomes the most testing when he must lead as a warlord by charging into battle.

As I earlier stated, Kurosawa perfected the battle scene with Seven Samurai, where Kagemusha diverts is the battle scenes are mostly done with the camera in a wide-angle focusing on Nakadai or the wreckage left after the fact. Much of the film is shot with wide-angle cinematography, actually, giving it the veneer of theatre production – much like the makeup effects. Westerns are also an influence with Shin’ichirō Ikebe having the feel of a John Ford production. To return to the battles, the scope is much more impressive, however, with the production design (all based on Kurosawa’s paintings) being full of vivid colour and scale lent by having a cast with what must be thousands of extras. The one outright battle scene is the finale and its executed in such a way as to imply stubborn futility with droves of men ordered to ride to their doom. A scene that is wholly impressive as a matter of execution and blocking as much as it is a visual spectacle.

War is just a backdrop rather than a focus, the more pressing concern is one of character and tradition. At the heart of the script is the conflict Tatsuya Nakadai’s character is faced with. Before the duty of being a warlord, a charge which if refused would result in Shingen’s former retainers executing him – the double was a crude thief who did what he wanted when he wanted. Now he has to become a restrained man who is described by his forces as an “immovable mountain”. The double has to assess his life choices with every passing day, effectively turning off his personality, replacing it with that of a dead man. It’s a moral conundrum that Nakadai pounces upon offering one of his many masterful performances; not only that, he also appears as the tower of strength that was Shingen, naturally. There’s a scene where the terror tattooed upon his face when he sees the pile of the dead who sacrificed themselves to save – what they thought – was their lord is chilling.

Kurosawa was a master with black and white cinematography. He was no slouch with colour either. Outside of that climactic battle, two scenes really stand out. The first sees the doppelganger find Shingen preserved in a huge jar, visuals aside, he found a vision of himself dead which would be haunting enough on its own. It is presented with a shock of green and blues and whilst not knowing the historical context of the huge jar in question, as a gaijin experiencing this oddly ornate vision in a film of ardent traditionalism, it’s an image that’ll stick with me long after memories of Kagemusha have faded. The second scene is related as its a nightmare in which the double is stalked by an off-colour Shingen in a (soundstage) space inspired by the same artistic movement found in the iconic Toho water logo and the sky a flurry of watercoloured matte paintings. It’s a gorgeous, albeit tense moment. Generally speaking, to quote the iconic (and defunct) YouTube channel’s name – Every Frame’s a Painting – composition, shade, blocking, colour, visually Kagemusha is about as good as it gets.

Objectively Kagemusha is undoubtedly a masterclass by one of the best directors who ever was, subjectively, I am not so sold. There is a multitude of reasons for this. First and foremost, this is a very slow-moving 3-hour long film. I subscribe to the famous Alfred Hitchcock quote “The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder,” anything longer really needs to justify its elongated length. I don’t believe this story had to be so long, there is a version that is just as artistic and nourishing and only lasts 2 hours. For sure, this is a personal preference but one that is further weighted by the heavy political stance. The constant cutaways to Ieyasu and Nobunaga or the scenes with Shingen’s son rightful aggrieved that he has to pretend a lowly thief is his superior and father. Scenes that are required as part of the narrative, however, where young Kurosawa made fiery passionate movies, older Kurosawa produced much cooler, emotionally closed stories. It’s a personal preference and the consensus is that this is one of Akira Kurosawa’s “late-career masterpieces”; but as the theory goes – reviews are the opinion of one person, also, find the bad in the good and the good in the bad. There isn’t anything “bad” here, more “not to my personal preference”.

End of the day though, all fans of classical Japanese cinema need to pounce on his new Criterion release – reservations or no. It’s about as good a release of this style of cinema you’re ever likely to get.

Thanks for reading Rob’s review of Kagemusha

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