Kagemusha (1980)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Akira Kurosawa

Writers:

Masato Ide (writer)
Akira Kurosawa (writer)

Release Date:

6 October 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History | War

Plot:

When a powerful warlord in medieval Japan dies, a poor thief recruited to impersonate him finds difficulty...

Plot Keywords:

Japan | Double | Warrior | 1570s | Rites

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 19 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Tatsuya Nakadai	...	Shingen Takeda / Kagemusha
Tsutomu Yamazaki	...	Nobukado Takeda
Kenichi Hagiwara	...	Katsuyori Takeda
Jinpachi Nezu	...	Sohachiro Tsuchiya
Hideji Otaki	...	Masakage Yamagata
Daisuke Ryu	...	Nobunaga Oda
Masayuki Yui	...	Ieyasu Tokugawa
Kaori Momoi	...	Otsuyanokata
Mitsuko Baisho	...	Oyunokata
Hideo Murota	...	Nobufusa Baba
Takayuki Shiho	...	Masatoyo Naito
Kôji Shimizu	...	Katsusuke Atobe
Noboru Shimizu	...	Masatane Hara
Sen Yamamoto	...	Nobushige Oyamada
Shuhei Sugimori	...	Masanobu Kosaka
Kota Yui	...	Takemaru
Yasuhito Yamanaka	...	Ranmaru Mori
Kumeko Otowa	...	Takemaru's Nurse
Tetsuo Yamashita	...	Nagahide Niwa
Kai Ato	...	Zenjiro Amemiya
Takashi Ebata	...	Monk
Hiroshi Shimada	...	Jingoro Hara
Yutaka Shimaka	...	Jingoro Hara
Toshiaki Tanabe	...	Kugutsushi
Yoshimitsu Yamaguchi	...	Salt Vendor
Eiichi Kanakubo	...	Kenshin Uesugi
Akihiko Sugizaki	...	Noda Castle Soldier
Yugo Miyazaki
Masatsuga Kuriyama
Norio Matsui	...	Tadatsugu Sakai
Jirô Chiba		(as Jiro Yabuki)
Yasushi Doshida	...	Kazumasa Ishikawa
Takashi Watanabe
Nobaru Sone	...	Heihachiro Honda (as Nori Sone)
Eihachi Ito
Senkichi Ômura
Takashi Shimura	...	Gyobu Taguchi
Kamatari Fujiwara	...	Doctor
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Shu Nakajima
Francis Selleck	...	Priest (as Francis Seleck)

Directed by
Akira Kurosawa

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Masato Ide		writer
Akira Kurosawa		writer

Produced by
Audie Bock	....	assistant producer
Francis Ford Coppola	....	executive producer: international version
Akira Kurosawa	....	executive producer
Akira Kurosawa	....	producer
George Lucas	....	executive producer: international version
Tomoyuki Tanaka	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Shinichirô Ikebe

Cinematography by
Takao Saitô
Shôji Ueda		(as Shoji Ueda)

Art Direction by
Yoshirô Muraki

Costume Design by
Seiichiro Hagakusawa

Makeup Department
Yoshiko Matsumoto	....	hair stylist
Shigeo Tamura	....	hair stylist
Junjiro Yamada	....	hair stylist

Production Management
Akira Fujita	....	unit production manager
Toshiaki Hashimoto	....	production manager
Toshiaki Hashimoto	....	unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ishirô Honda	....	second unit director
Hideyuki Inoue	....	assistant director
Takashi Koizumi	....	assistant director
Fumiryo Okada	....	chief assistant director
Takao Okawara	....	assistant director

Art Department
Aki Saburagi	....	assistant art director
Hatsumi Yamamoto	....	property master

Sound Department
Ichirô Minami	....	sound effects editor
Mamoru Yamada	....	assistant sound recordist
Fumio Yanoguchi	....	sound recordist

Camera and Electrical Department
Naomi Hashiyama	....	still photographer
Satoshi Kurikihara	....	assistant lighting technician
Tamio Matsuo	....	assistant camera
Kazuo Miyagawa	....	consultant: photography
Asakazu Nakai	....	consultant: photography
Takeji Sano	....	lighting technician

Editorial Department
Yoshihiro Iwatani	....	assistant editor
Tome Minami	....	negative cutter

Music Department
Kotaro Saito	....	conductor

Transportation Department
Isamu Miwano	....	transportation

Other crew
Audie Bock	....	assistant to producer (international version)
Francis Ford Coppola	....	presenter
Masa Furugawara	....	scene shifter
Toshi Hasegawa	....	horseback riding instructor
Shinobu Hashimoto	....	production advisor
Hiroaki Honda	....	acting office
Ishirô Honda	....	directorial advisor
Ishirô Honda	....	production coordinator
Ryu Kuze	....	instructor: samurai etiquette
George Lucas	....	presenter
Teruyo Nogami	....	assistant to producer
Teruyo Nogami	....	script supervisor
Donald Richie	....	subtitle supervisor (US version)
Donald Richie	....	subtitler (international version)
Takao Saitô	....	production advisor
Tamihei Shirai	....	horseback riding instructor
Ishirô Honda	....	creative consultant (uncredited)
Michael Rich	....	assistant to director (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Kurosawa Production Co.
• Toho Company
• Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (in association)

Distributors

• Toho Company (1980) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (1980) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• Fox (1980) (Sweden) (theatrical)
• Abril Vídeo (????) (Brazil) (VHS)
• Criterion Collection, The (2009) (USA) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2009) (USA) (DVD) (Blu-ray)
• Fox Video (????) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• Svensk Filmindustri (SF) (2004) (Sweden) (DVD)

Special Effects

• Toho Special Effects Group

Other Companies

• Ehime Castle  
• Iga Ueno Castle  
• JAL  
• Kumamoto Castle  
• Kyoto Costumes  costumes
• Mimatsu  costumes
• New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra  orchestra
• Toho Recording Center  sound re-recording
• Toho Sound Effects Group  sound effects
• Toho Studios  sound stages
• Tokyo Concerts  orchestra

Also Known As:

Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior)
Kagemusha the Shadow Warrior
Shadow Warrior
The Double

Runtime:

180 min | Argentina:162 min | USA:162 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:12 | South Korea:12 (1998) | Portugal:M/12 | Australia:PG | Sweden:15 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Gotemba, Shizuoka, Japan

Company:

Kurosawa Production Co.

Trivia:

This became the final feature film for one of director Akira Kurosawa's favorite actors, Takashi Shimura. Shimura would pass away in 1982.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Obvious bald caps on nearly every adult male character in the film.

Quotes:

Nobukado Takeda: The shadow of a man can never stand up and walk on its own.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Brazil (1985)

Better than Shakespeare

I saw the director's cut about twenty years after I first saw the film. Kagemusha is as magnificent now as before, but what has changed in the meantime is my appreciation of the meaning of Shakespeare's plays. The history plays and most of the tragedies were about the political dilemmas facing the new Tudor state. The Elizabethan audience sat on the edge of their seats waiting to see how political order might be restored once it had been set in disarray. The Wars of the Roses sequence culminates in the late political tragedies -- Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet and Lear. The question is always the same. How is an impersonal modern state possible when its leader is a person, the King? Or is rule by office compatible with the human flaws of the person occupying it? Shakespeare was the client of a conservative aristocratic faction, no rabble-rousing democrat he. But he went so deep into this political question in the course of writing all his plays that he dug deeper into this core issue of modern politics than anyone since.

Kurosawa approaches the same question through the notion of a double,"the shadow of a warrior", Kagemusha. Here the contrast between the office of the political leader and its personal incumbent is brought vividly to life in so many ways. The period is the Japanese equivalent of England's War of the Roses, the transition from feudalism to the beginnings of the modern state. The losing side in this case is the one that tries to resolve the contradiction of personality and office by a subterfuge, a thief masquerading as a lord. The winning side and founder of the Japanese state is the Tokugawa clan. The climactic battle symbolises the passage from traditional to modern warfare, as the horses of the losers are mown down by fusillades of gunfire. The credits run as the corpse of the double crosses a submerged flag whose abstract symbolism shows us which aspects of feudalism the modern state will borrow. Personality is vanquished.

The aesthetic vision animating this movie is incredible. There is so much to look at and admire, perhaps interpret. One striking feature for me was the persistent strong breeze ripping through the banners, a symbol of the winds of change running through 16th century Japan, contemporary to Shakespeare's period. Because this drama was made by and for the modern cinema, in many ways Kurosawa's masterpiece is better than Shakespeare.