In 1572, there is a civil war in Japan, and three powerful clans, leaded by the lords Shingen Takeda (Tatsuya Nakadai), Nobunaga Oda (Daisuke Ryu) and Ieyasu Tokugawa (Masayuki Yui), dispute the conquest of Kyoto. When Shingen is mortally wounded, the Takeda clan hides the incident and uses a poor thief to be the double of the strategist Shingen and keep the respect of their enemies. Along the years, Kagemusha incorporates the spirit of the warrior of the dead warlord.
Akira Kurosawa has got to be one of the finest visual directors I've ever seen. By watching more and more of his films, I'm beginning to appreciate him more. I love the way in this movie, how the 4 different parts of Shingen's banner (Wind, Forest, Fire and Mountain) all have different uniforms. Wind = blue, Forest = green, Fire = orange/red, Mountain = black/purple. Also, the way Kurosawa centers things like the opening scene where Shingen is seated in the center, his brother Nobukado to his right (stage left) and the thief Kagemusha is on the right with a single candel near him. That pretty much sets the tone for the movie right then and there. Although, I felt it did run a bit long at 177 minutes and I feel 20-30 minutes could have been cut out, I definitely enjoyed it more with a second viewing. Next, I hope to be able to find the time to view Ran a second time.
