by Miguel E. Rodriguez
DIRECTOR: Akira Kurosawa
CAST: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsotumo Yamazaki, Ken’ichi Hagawara
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 88%
PLOT: A petty thief 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.
Kagemusha is a double-edged sword for me, no pun intended. On the one hand, its visual beauty is virtually peerless. Only the films of Kubrick, Lean, and those shot by Vittorio Storaro are even in the same league as Kurosawa. There are shots in Kagemusha that will remain in my mind long after the details of the story have been purged by old age. In particular, there’s a shot with Japanese soldiers crossing a ridgeline in the background, more soldiers in the foreground, and the setting sun positioned perfectly, so the shadows of the soldiers in the background reach out towards the viewer and interact with the foreground soldiers. It’s a masterpiece.
On the other hand, the pacing is so sedate that newcomers to Kurosawa or foreign films in general might wonder, my god, when is something going to happen? At one point, a key figure is taken out by musket fire from an enemy soldier. This happens so early that we haven’t been introduced to all the main characters just yet, so the conversations surrounding the gunshot were a mystery to me until later in the film.
On the other hand, Kurosawa proves himself over and over again to be a master of the visual aspects of cinema. In addition to the shot I mentioned above, there is a trippy dream sequence that looks as if it were painted with an explosion at the paint factory (I mean that in the best possible sense), a wonderful camera move that reveals two characters who are conversing in a plain room are actually overlooking a stormy lake, and an eerie moment when the contents of a large vase are revealed after a lengthy burglary attempt. There are way too many other examples, you simply have to see the film to appreciate what I’m talking about. I suppose the way to get the most out of the Kagemusha experience is to surrender to the visuals, much like I do with Barry Lyndon or Doctor Zhivago.
I wouldn’t advise anyone to completely ignore the story, though. There is immense food for thought here. A condemned thief is conscripted to act as a warlord’s double. We never learn the thief’s real name. He is credited only as “Kagemusha”, aka “The Shadow Warrior.” He must present an outward face to the other generals, friends and foe, in the event that the real warlord is injured or killed, which (SPOILER ALERT) inevitably happens. There is portentous dialogue about how a shadow only exists if the man is alive. Remove the man, and how can a shadow remain?
There are several close calls where Kagemusha’s secret is almost revealed. His grandson – well, sort of his grandson, it’s a long story – immediately yells, “THAT’S not my grandfather!” when he sees him after a long absence. The real warlord, Shingen, had a huge black horse that only he could ride. The inner circle who knows Kagemusha’s secret agrees immediately that he should never try to ride it; you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can never fool a horse. Shingen’s mistresses present a real danger. Kagemusha squirms for a few moments as they slowly start to question his identity during tea, but he brilliantly defuses the situation by telling them the one thing they would never believe: the truth.
There’s also a much larger issue at work in Kagemusha. Shingen’s own generals (the ones outside of the inner circle), and the opposing warlords, all believe Shingen is still alive when they see him on the battlefield. They have no reason to think he’s an impostor. There are some skeptics, but their spies are helpless to discover the ruse. For all intents and purposes, that is Shingen, and they behave accordingly.
There is one battle at night where this, I don’t know, philosophy becomes all too real for Kagemusha. In the darkness, Shingen’s forces can hear enemy armies approaching, and then musket fire breaks out. Instinctively, Shingen’s bodyguards leap to shield Shingen/Kagemusha from enemy bullets. Some are killed. The look of horror on Kagemusha’s face as the dead bodyguards are piled on top of other bodies is indescribable. They gave their lives for him. Or, more importantly, they gave their lives for the idea of Shingen, their belief that he was the most important person on the battlefield. I was reminded of a bit of dialogue from American Sniper, of all things, when the lead character, an accomplished sniper, is asked to cover some soldiers on a raid. He is told that the soldiers feel invincible with him up there. He says they’re not, and the reply is eye-opening: “They are if they think they are.” Just like the soldiers in American Sniper, the soldiers in Kagemusha are prepared to lay down their lives for a concept. The man is nothing, a thief. They don’t know that, though.
This took me down a little bit of a rabbit hole. I thought of Secret Service agents whose literal job is to protect our President and take a bullet for him if necessary. It doesn’t matter whether he (or she) agrees with the President’s policies. That is secondary. Their job boils down to one thing: I will die to protect this person if that’s what it takes. The dedication on display by these men and women humbles me, and it makes me think. Surely, they have opinions about world and national policies. Doesn’t matter. It’s not part of the job.
Watching those bodyguards fall in front of the imposter warlord made me think really hard about those kinds of jobs, about anyone in any branch of the armed forces. Ready to kill and die for what they believe in. In the case of Kagemusha, these people died for a fake. It makes their deaths sad, but are they any less honorable? Like I said, food for thought.
The film ends with a massive battle where, curiously, we are not shown any deaths, only the aftermath. (The opposing general is especially cruel: “Shoot the horses first.”) Then there is a dreamlike coda that recalls that philosophy of dying for the right cause.
To recap, though, the movie is slow going, at least as slow, if not slower, than Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. I can see that Kurosawa has a lot to say with this movie. He employed thousands of extras and lavish costumes (financed thanks to the involvement of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, which is this whole OTHER thing). It’s not my favorite Kurosawa film. That spot is reserved for Ran (1985), which I consider his career-capping masterpiece. Kagemusha sort of lays the groundwork for that movie, in my opinion. It was one of his first films in color (I think) and it shows a natural talent for the medium. Like I said before, surrender to the visuals and contemplate the story, and the slow pacing will take care of itself. (That doesn’t make much sense, but I’m sticking to it.)
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 