The 1970s were a difficult decade for Akira Kurosawa. In the late 1960s, he spent years working on two projects that never came to fruition – Runaway Train was cancelled after months of prep work, and he was fired from Tora! Tora! Tora! after three weeks of shooting.

He struggled to gain financing for another picture, but with the help of some friends, he made his first color film, Dodes’ka-den, in 1970. It was a commercial failure.

He attempted suicide in 1971.

He only made one other film in the 1970s, Dersu Uzala, and that had to be made in Russia with Russian financing. It did relatively well both critically and commercially, but he would not make another film this decade.

With the help of George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, he was able to make Kagemusha in 1980. In some ways it feels like a warm-up for the director’s next film (and his last truly great movie), Ran.  Both films are set in the Sengoku period of Japan’s history and feature epic battles, political cunning, and samurai. 

Ran tends to get all the glory, but don’t sleep on Kagemusha.

A petty thief (Tatsuya Nakadai) is set to be executed by crucifixion, but when Takeda Nobukado (Tsutomu Yamazaki), the brother of Takeda Shingen (Tatsuya Nakadai), the daimyo (or warlord) of the powerful Takeda Clan, realizes that the thief looks a lot like Takeda, he stays his execution and uses him as a double, or political decoy: a kagemusha – or shadow warrior.

While laying siege to a castle, Takeda is mortally injured. Before he dies, he tells his generals to keep his death a secret for three years. Much of the film is spent with the generals trying to fool everyone –  Takeda’s grandson, his mistresses, his enemies, and even his horse – that the thief (who is never given a name, so we’ll call him Takeda from now on) is the daimyo.

This proves surprisingly easy, and the double is quite good at impersonating the real Takeda. At first the grandson recognizes he is not the real Takeda, but the double is so much kinder and more playful than his real grandfather that the boy quickly takes to him and soon doesn’t care if he is real or not.

The mistresses either don’t notice the differences or are smart enough to realize that if they make a fuss, they will likely lose their jobs or their lives. In a meeting the double proves himself sly, besting the son in words when he balks at the whole scenario.

Most of the clan and their enemies have never seen their leader up close, and since he is careful to wear the full daimyo armor in public and is only seen at a distance by most, nobody seems to realize they are being duped. 

Over time, Takeda begins to think he is the real deal. He starts to give orders as if he is truly boss, much to the chagrin of the generals. As part of the real Takeda’s orders, the clan was supposed to suspend all fighting and keep to themselves for a time.  But the double starts pushing toward war. The film ends on a poignant and utterly devastating note.

At 180 minutes, the film runs long. I found myself struggling to keep up somewhere in the middle. The story is a bit difficult to follow. Many of the characters are based on real people, and I have no doubt that many of the historical and cultural nuances went straight over my head.

Where the film excels is in its visual storytelling. There is a great scene where the rifleman who shot the real Takeda demonstrates how he was able to do it, shooting with a rudimentary gun at a great distance in the dark. It is Kurosawa storytelling at its best.

The film used hundreds, even thousands, of extras for the battle scenes. Kurosawa was a master at staging, and he does so brilliantly here. Sometimes there will be long lines of horses that march across the back of the screen, then the middle, and the foreground. Between them are foot soldiers marching in opposite directions. It must have been quite a feat getting them all to move in the way that looks visually interesting.

His use of color is astounding. There is one scene where all of these soldiers are marching. The sun is setting behind them, and it is so stunningly beautiful I almost cried.

Famously, there is a dream sequence where the fake Takeda faces the real one. Because it is a dream, Kurosawa paints it with vivid colors. The background is a psychedelic landscape of primaries, the ground is the stuff of fantasy, and it ends with Takeda staring at himself in a mirror like pool of water. 

Every moment of this film is beautiful to look at.

I just wish the story held my attention more. In the end, this isn’t top-tier Kurosawa, but there is so much beauty to be found I must highly recommend it.