Akira Kurosawa's lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.
Cinematography
Kurosawa waited 10 years to make this — every frame is a painting.
Acting
Nakadai plays two men becoming one; you forget which is which.
Direction
The funeral procession scene — silent, devastating, ten minutes of pure cinema.
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Tatsuya Nakadai
Shingen Takeda / Kagemusha
Tsutomu Yamazaki
Nobukado Takeda
Kenichi Hagiwara
Katsuyori Takeda
Jinpachi Nezu
Sohachiro Tsuchiya
Hideji Ōtaki
Masakage Yamagata
Daisuke Ryū
Nobunaga Oda
Masayuki Yui
Ieyasu Tokugawa
Kaori Momoi
Otsuyanokata
Mitsuko Baisho
Oyunokata
Hideo Murota
Nobufusa Baba
Kōji Shimizu
Katsusuke Atobe
Sen Yamamoto
Nobushige Oyamada
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped secure funding after Kurosawa's commercial failures; they appear in the international credits as 'presenters.'
The dream sequence of floating banners was achieved by painting the cloth and filming underwater — Kurosawa's most hallucinatory image.
JP
