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Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kenichi Hagiwara, Kota Yui, Shuji Otake ... see more see more... , Daisuke Ryu , Mitsuko Baisho , Kamatari Fujiwara , Norio Matsui , Kaori Momoi , Hideo Murota , Jinpachi Nezu , Takashi Shimura , Masayuki Yui

Just as many American studio-era directors found acclaim abroad that was denied them in their home country, by 1980 Akira Kurosawa's reputation outside Japan exceeded his esteem at home. As uncompromi... read more read more...sing as ever, he found considerable difficulty securing backing for his ambitious projects. Unsure he would be able to film it, the director, an aspiring artist before he entered filmmaking, converted Kagemusha into a series of paintings, and it was partly on the basis of these that he won the financial support of longtime admirers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. Set in the 16th century, when powerful warlords competed for control of Japan, it offers an examination of the nature of political power and the slipperiness of identity. For some time, Shingen Takeda Tatsuya Nakadai has been able to stay removed from the heat of battle by using his brother Nobukado Tsutomu Yamazaki as a double. As the film opens, Nobukado offers another option, having discovered a condemned thief (also played by Tatsuya Nakadai) bearing an uncanny resemblance to the warlord. After he insists on witnessing the fall of an enemy in person, Shingen falls victim to a sniper's bullet, forcing his advisers to present the thief as the fallen warrior. At first awkward in his new position and plagued by dreams in which the spirit of his double confronts him, he slowly grows into the role even as his enemies begin to advance on his kingdom. The winner of the Palm D'Or at Cannes, Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior has also been released as The Double. ~ Keith Phipps, Rovi

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91% liked it

11,254 ratings

Critics

86% liked it

21 critics

PG, 2 hr. 59 min.

Directed by: Akira Kurosawa

Release Date: April 26, 1980

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DVD Release Date: March 29, 2005

Stats: 731 reviews

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Kagemusha Kagemusha Shingen (Kagemusha) and his grandson Takemaru Kagemusha Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior) (The Double) Akira Kurosawa's Shadow Warrior
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Flixster Reviews (731)

  • axadntpron
    February 12, 2012
    axadntpron
    Kagemusha is a simple, slow-moving, but altogether fascinating look at honor and loyalty.
    When a powerful warlord is killed in battle, a thief with an uncanny resemblance is reluctantly made to impersonate the recently deceased in order to keep up appearances.
    Aside from being a... read moren interesting piece of history, Kurosawa is also playing with the idea of honor.
    Kurosawa gives the viewer large scale battle sequences in which many thousands of men are willing to die for their allegiance to their honored leader. Yet, how honorable and infinite is the master's wisdom if it can be mimicked by a common thief?
    And for this man unwillingly thrust into such a position of power, Kurosawa makes a point to show the horror on his face as he sees hoards of young men being brutalized under his command.
    After the imposter is outed, Kurosawa shifts from the leader's perspective to the soldiers themselves. Showing how without an idea to cling to, they really are just dying for nothing. The camera just rests on the battlefield, watching as the bloodied and battered soldiers fight to live. It is a difficult scene to watch, but through it Kurosawa makes some powerful statements.
    It is a samurai epic that dares to question the meaning of it all, and for that alone is deserving of your attention.
  • FilmFanatik
    November 28, 2011
    FilmFanatik
    One of Akira Kurosawa's masterpieces (everything he made is such), Kagemusha is one of his first forays into the world of color. The film looks like a living painting with very broad and rich colors everywhere, making the film unique from his other work - despite delving into the... read more samurai world once again. The film is beautiful to watch, the story is interesting and the ending is absolutely gut-wrenching. Unfortunately, I found the characters to be confusing at times since a lot of them are intended to look alike. I also think there are some moments that are much longer and slow-moving than they need to be. Other than those gripes, Kagemusha is another impressive work in a long line of impressive works from one of cinema's great masters.
  • EightThirty
    July 15, 2010
    EightThirty
    14/07/2010 (DVD)

    A little confusing at times but when you start realizing who is who then it starts getting good.

    Luckily there was a commentary option for audio so when it came to a part that lost me I just took it back a bit and allowed the commentary to explain things a litt... read morele more so I could understand what was going on.

    It's a little draggy but I liked it anyway. A decent watch.
  • nelsonpickens
    July 2, 2010
    nelsonpickens
    Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" is one of those tremendously long films that somehow never drags. Regardless of your opinion on the movie, there is one thing everybody agrees on: there is beauty painted all over the screen. There's not a badly-lit or badly-composed frame in the enti... read morere film. We get a surreal, array-flooded nightmare sequence, gorgeous landscape shots, majestic views of the ocean, and much more. Kurosawa always storyboarded his films using painting as opposed to sketches and here he just let loose an array of passion and colors that undoubtedly mirror what he did while trying to sell the story to distributors. Like he would do with "Ran", although not quite to the same extent, Kurosawa graphically re-enacts violence with an artistic, but harrowing nature that is completely foreign to the glorified, stimulating duels of "Yojimbo." Blood is let loose in torrents throughout the film, but Kurosawa does not overdo it to the point where it might condescend into some kind of an unintentional comedy. The climax of the movie, a recreation of the 1575 Battle of Nagashino brilliantly generates a reaction from the audience and the famous four-minute montage of death and suffering that follows is truly gripping.The running time of "Kagemusha" will question the full extent of its audience as will the scenes where very little happens for a while, but for those who appreciate a good movie and have three hours to spare, this is a tremendously enthralling experience. "Kagemusha" boasts a lot of exterior display, but unlike a great many other movies that have the same accolade of looking good, Kurosawa's movie shows beauty beneath as well, on the human level, encompassing the audience with a heck of a story. It had me drawn in right from the very beginning. This is the definition of a motion picture.
  • bbcfloridabound
    March 22, 2010
    bbcfloridabound
    A 5 Star Criterion Collection Film. The very best Japanese film I have ever seen. The Costumes and the amount of people unbelievable. The era is early Japan 1500. The best film you will ever see. No limit on Budget. 5 stars
  • bottcorecords1
    February 24, 2010
    bottcorecords1
    Kagemusha is director Akira Kurosawa's 3-hour epic historical drama surrounding the events of, and leading up to, the Battle of Nagashino. The warlord Shingen sits on his throne of power, using his brother Nobukado as a stand-in, or body double in case of assassins. Nobukado fi... read morends a thief who's been sentenced to death who bears an uncanny resemblance to the lord and spares his life in order to recruit him for the job of stand-in. The thief refuses at first, but later, but later, when Shingen is struck by a sniper's bullet, he steps in to become the "kagemusha" or "shadow warrior" (the shadow image of the fallen warlord). With the aid of Nobukado, he learns the protocol necessary to fool the friends and family of the ruler. Kurosawa takes a Robert Bresson approach to Kagemusha, in that he never shows the key events actually transpiring: when the sniper shoots Shingen, we only hear the sound of it, and the subsequent aftermath; when the final climactic battle takes place, we only see the aftermath of the gunfight, not the actual gunfight itself; when Kagemusha falls from the horse, we only see him laying on the ground, not the fall itself. Kurosawa's usual visual approach has been muted a little as well, instead of the shockingly contrasting black and white visual style of earlier works (or the absolute fascination on display in the follow-up film, "Ran"), we get large, cutting swathes of outdoor shots. Armies with their colorful flags, on the march against the backdrop of the sea. His stand-out visuals here consist of cutting the screen in two or three sections and giving us contrasting colors between them (such as in Kagemusha's dream sequence). But what about the story? At three hours, it's spread a little thin, but then again, so do most films of this genre. The way Kagemusha treats his role in all this is a little ambigious: is he an actor trying to portray a ruler or does he really come to believe he is the warlord? In the context of historical dramas, it ranks among the best. In the world of Kurosawa, it's somewhat less. It's a film though, that took alot for Kurosawa to make. After running out of financial backing, american directors George Lucas and Frances Ford Coppola convinced 20th Century Fox to back the completion of the film. It's a great story of the kind of respect Kurosawa garners in film community.
  • flixsterman
    January 16, 2010
    flixsterman
    Epic, tragic and a treat for the eyes. Falls short of Kurosawa's Ran, but just barely.

    *NOTE: The three hour run time means that it is definitely not hemorrhoid friendly.
  • Saxia
    August 24, 2008
    Saxia
    I saw the movie twice in two days, and it's an interesting movie, very different from his other work.
    I found out that the role that Nakadai plays, was originally written for Katsu Shintaro, but that they didn't get along at all, and Kurosawa had to look for another actor to st... read morear in his place (good choice if you ask me). Kurosawa intended it to be a more funny movie (and with Shintaro that would obviously have been the case), but of course it didn't work out that way.
  • kiriyamakazou
    May 29, 2008
    kiriyamakazou
    Kurosawa may have referred to it as a dress rehersal for Ran, but Kagemusha is an incredible film in its own right. Never getting dragged down throughout its 3 hour running time, Kurosawa again proves (if proof be needed) that he is certainly a master of pace. Kurosawa shows he i... read mores and always has been an atist. The colours used in the dream sequences are simply beautiful.
  • rubystevens
    March 24, 2008
    rubystevens
    like a mad tragic japanese prisoner of zenda. beautifully filmed and the final scenes are heartrending

View All Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior) (The Double) Reviews

Critic Reviews

Roger Ebert
October 23, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

There are great images in this film. Full Review

Vincent Canby
May 20, 2003
Vincent Canby, New York Times

There is beauty in Kagemusha but it is impersonal, distant and ghostly. The old master has never been more rigorous. Full Review

Eric Henderson
August 21, 2009
Eric Henderson, Slant Magazine

Kagemusha, much like the similarly overblown but handsomely mounted Lawrence of Arabia, is an epic with a cipher in its point position. Full Review

Peter Canavese
August 5, 2009
Peter Canavese, Groucho Reviews

A fine example of the Kurosawa style...precision of narrative in both scripting and imagistic storytelling... [Blu-ray] Full Review

Keith Uhlich
July 15, 2009
Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York

At worst, the film is an empty vessel that places blind trust in affected stillness and symmetry... the movie quite often switches on a dime to more deep and meaningful textures. Full Review

Emanuel Levy
June 26, 2005
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

Though not as overall impressive as his next picture Ran, Kagemusha, Akira Kurosawa's return to the epic Samurai film deservedly received Oscar nominations for its great pictorial beauty and other pro... Full Review

Leo Goldsmith
April 29, 2005
Leo Goldsmith, Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Here, as in all of Kurosawa's late films, this sense of hopeless fixity renders unconvincing any hope for human agency. Full Review

David Thomas
January 26, 2005
David Thomas, Filmcritic.com

Nakadai's performance as Kagemusha and Shingen is impressive, creating two distinct characters, one of whom eerily mimics the other Full Review

Brian Mckay
March 19, 2003
Brian Mckay, eFilmCritic.com

Dull and plodding presentation of an interesting period of Japanese history.

Dragan Antulov
October 2, 2002
Dragan Antulov, rec.arts.movies.reviews

A powerful film.

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