Review No. : 0019
Title : Kagemusha
Year : 1980
Director : Akira
Kurosawa
Country : Japan
World’s Verdict : Rotten
Tomatoes – 86% out of 100%; IMDB – 6.9 out of 10.0; Cannes Film Festival – Palm
d’Or Award.
My Verdict : 3.0
out of 5.0.
The
first scene of Kagemusha (1980) is brilliant in countless ways and I consider
it a prime example of art and function.
It shows three similar-looking men wearing identical clothes sitting in
a dark room. The man at the center is
Shingen (Tatsuya Nakadai), a powerful daimyo who is currently at war with other
Japanese clans. The man on Shingen’s
right is Nobukado (Tsutomo Yamazaki), his brother and his right hand man. The man on Shingen’s left is a thief (also
played by Tatsuya Nakadai), who was about to be crucified but was saved by
Nobukado because of his uncanny resemblance with the daimyo. The status and rank is shown on where they
are seated, the thief on the floor, Nobukado on an elevated floor and Shingen
sitting on a dais. The scene lasts more
than six minutes and it effectively establishes the story of the film. The conversation starts with Nobukado and
Shingen, they examine the thief, talk about his background, how he looks very
much like the daimyo. Nobukado proposes
to Shingen that the thief could be an effective double for him. The scene also establishes the personalities
of the three major characters: The daimyo, who will do anything to protect his
clan; Nobukado, who will do anything to protect his brother;
and the thief, who is stubborn but willing to submit just to survive.
Three
and four are the magic numbers used in this scene to balance it and make it a
little symmetrical. Three. Three men, three heights of seats and three
vertical objects: a candlestick with a lighted candle, a sword stand with
katana on it and the shadow of the katana and its stand. The candlestick is the foreground, the sword
and its stand is the middleground and its shadow is the background. Light, sword and shadow. Each object represents a man beside it. The sword symbolizes power and represents the
mighty Shingen sitting near it. In this
scene the candle is near the thief because he is the subject of scrutiny but he
will eventually be a representation of the light, the idea and the solution
after the mighty sword falls. At the
back of Nobukado is the shadow of the sword, because that is his role, he is a
shadow of his brother and will continue to be a shadow even after the death of
the daimyo. The other magic number in
this scene is four. Four petals of the
lotus flower that is the symbol of the Shingen’s clan and four for the four men
in the room. There are three men but
there is only one visible shadow, the shadow of Shingen, this is the fourth
man. The effectiveness of this scene is
that it foreshadows what will happen to the thief and Nobukada. The shadow of Shingen will forever haunt the
lives of the thief and the brother. They
will live for him, imitate him and make sure that his physical shadow will live
even when he is already gone and this is through making the thief a kagemusha.
Kagemusha
literary means “shadow warrior”, a body double, a political decoy. The film is set in the Sengoku period of
Japan and tells the story of a thief who is a body double for a daimyo and the
officers willing to deceive the public and enemies to preserve their clan. Soon the daimyo dies and the thief is hired
to continue to impersonate the leader because the strength of their military is
perceived through the living daimyo.
The
Good
- The
cinematography – Akira Kurosawa is known for his well-thought-of beautiful
scenes and this movie is another visual art.
Too much beauty, techniques and thoughts are embedded in small and big
scenes. The opening sequence is a good
example of a simple but artistic shot.
The battle scenes are examples of full blown cinematic experience
because of its sheer scale that involves hundreds of warriors and horses
running on a vast field. The value of
this movie relies very much on cinematography.
The Bad
- The
sometimes over-the-top acting – Tatsuya Nakadai effectively delivers the role
of the thief or the kagemusha. Though,
there are moments that I feel he exaggerates his acting a little bit. An example is when he plans to steal one
night, he acts like a comic cartoon, exaggerating the movement of his arms,
legs and eyes. Another taste of
over-the-top performance from Nakadai is the last scene wherein he runs to the
battlefield defenseless (which makes no sense to me at all), he opens his mouth
very wide and makes his eyes big that it looks like it will pop out. It’s a little bit of theatrical acting.
- Ghostly
make-up – I remember in Ran (1985), Tatsuya Nakadai wears a make-up so white
that it makes him look like a ghost, but it actually contributed to
cinematography. There is a similar scene
in Kamegusha (1980) wherein Nakadai is again so white that he is beyond pale,
he looks more like a ghost and the natural effect is abolished. I just don’t get why Kurosawa loves to do
this, I get it in Ran (1985) but not in this movie, it’s just a little bit off.
- The
dream sequence – There is a scene wherein the thief is gets visited by the dead
daimyo in a nightmare. What I like about
this scene is that the colors are very vibrant and it contains the most
memorable scene in the entire movie.
What I don’t like about it is that it looks very much like a scene shoot
in a 1950s studio. It looks very much
fake even for a dream.
- The
lack of action – The film, even though it contains grand scale battle scenes is
not much of action and stunts. So if you
are looking for battle action this is not the movie.
- Unsustainable
interest – 20 minutes before the film ends I already lost my interest and I
feel like the last battle scene is too long and too grand but useless. The movie started very well but the ending
could have been better or shorter.
This
movie has one of the best opening scenes, it captivated me but near the ending
of the film I lost a little bit of interest.
I do recommend this movie to be watched by film enthusiasts a lot of
techniques can be learned from it.
