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Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I think you, viewer, and reader of this review, should avoid Kagemusha.Here is why.I'm a long standing fan of Kurosawa, and i consider Rashomon and Shichinin no Samurai two of the greatest films ever made; Kagemusha, is a very, very different beast.First off, it's a three hour marathon. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and it was not uncommon for directors to write cinema-quality films that lasted for five or six hours, which would then be serialized on TV. But to stomach the whole of these 187 minutes, it takes the most hardcore film snob.The main story is of, Toshiro Mifune (which has carried the brunt of Kurosawa's work), here as a lowly thief who is at the right place at the right time. He looks just like a local lord who has just died, so they put him in place as Kagemusha, or "stunt double". There is an opposing clan (the Oda/Tokugawa alliance) which wants to attack them, but they are scared of the lord's tenacity.Now, this film has tons of fantastic acting, superb touching moments from Mifune, as he changes - like his character does - from thief into feudal lord, more and more adapting to the role within the role.But it's also three bloody hours.See, the issue here is that the classic "hero" solution cannot work; this is a historical piece and Mifune's character must fail, despite how much we root for him. This not only leads to disappointment, but also sets the film's needs for lengthy and complex developments of the background, rather than focusing on the character arcs, such as 7 Samurai does.And this is why i have a hard time recommending Kagemusha to the viewer. It's a documentary interspersed with some character drama, but if you are not prepared to watch over two hours of medieval troops marching, i suggest you give this a miss. It's a shame because with some solid editing you could get a 1-hour film of great class; but then again maybe a re-write would be better.8/10 - it might be a masterpiece, but it's not a FILM masterpiece.

I first saw this magnificent film at Cannes in 1980. In those romantic days before the building of the new Palais des Festivals in ugly concrete, the old Palais was a shining white building in the centre of the Croisette. I was there as a journalist and usually - even for the largest films (E.T, for example), the press conferences were in a top floor salon that accommodated around 150 maximum.For Kagemusha, however, the press conference was held in the auditorium of the Grand Palais itself. We all waited with baited breath as the great man appeared in his characteristic black outfit, to a thunderous applause about five minutes after the end of the film. I can't remember who moderated the questions, but I can remember how Kurosawa deftly skirted around questions of finance, which were passed over to a representative of Coppola and Lucas, but was thorough and forthcoming in answering questions about the shoot and his views on the thematic side of the film.But no one was very critical, as we had almost all been won over by this magnificent film - his first Japanese film for almost a decade. Although it was not alluded to in the press conference, the more I thought about Kagemusha, the more it seemed to me to be really very Shakespearean in theme - about the concept of kingship, and expressed the notion that the responsibility of kingship in itself imposes a certain nobility on the person who assumes it.In the early scenes, the Great Lord Shingen who commands the throne as the film opens, is totally regal in his comportment, which is greatly contrasted with that of the thief who is chosen to become his 'kagemusha' or shadow warrior. But gradually, as the film progresses, the kagemusha assumes more and more the regal characteristics of Shingen, while Shingen's relatives prove themselves unworthy.The film, like all of Kurosawa's mid- to late-period works, is visually magnificent with often symmetrical sets and bold clear use of colour in a quasi-symbolic way. At that time, when I was in my early thirties, I had drifted away from the earlier reverence I had for the director, in a misguided belief that one had to choose between Kurosawa and Mizoguchi – much as some people still think that you have to choose between Chaplin and Keaton. But Kagemusha made me realise that in Japanese cinema there was really an extraordinary triumvirate in Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa and no choice was necessary. I do not find this film any less wonderful than 'Ran'.

I thought that it was very interesting to find out that this movie actually had problems getting the funds necessary to finish the film. George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped convince 20th Century-Fox to fund the remaining portion of the budget in exchange for international distribution rights for Kagemusha. I thought it was neat how Kurosawa create huge battle scenes with little funding. He created the 'illusion' of a huge battle by showing scenes of marching soldiers, small clips of battle scenes, and sound effects. It is unbelievable that this film was so close to not getting produced because of the funding difficulties. I am very happy that this film got the funding it needed.

Akira Kurosawa, acclaimed Japanese film writer and director, is probably best known in the west via his influence on many notable new wave era filmmakers. Here two of those Kurosawa acolytes, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, repaid the debt as it were by helping to finance the Japanese veteran's most ambitious and stupendous epic yet. In spite of its grandeur, Kurosawa would later dismiss Kagemusha as a mere "dress rehearsal" for Ran, his even vaster epic of 1985. But when watching this earlier picture's awesome pageantry and historical re-enactment, one's likely response is "some rehearsal!" Kagemusha takes Kurosawa back to his biggest hits of the 1950s, being set in war-torn feudal Japan. However the focus is very different, moving away from the peasants, bandits and disgraced warriors as protagonists and small-scale human relations as his themes, now looking at the machinations of the highest echelon of that society, with an often cold and distant eye. Since his 1971 suicide attempt Kurosawa seemed to become more cynical and detached from human affairs, not just as a writer but also in his technical style as a director. Kagemusha contains very few close-ups, with even key dialogue scenes filmed with vast gaps between camera and actors, and objective god-shots for the busier scenes.And yet there are similarities here with Kurosawa's much earlier pictures, especially in the director's aesthetic use of movement and stillness within the frame. Check out the scene in which the soldiers hear an enemy playing a flute from across the lines. The men are completely motionless, and the only movement is a flickering fire in the background and the occasional twitch of a flag in the breeze. It makes for a considerably mystical moment. But this approach has a function beyond the aesthetic. The opening scene, filmed all in one shot, shows Lord Shingen, the impersonator (both played by Tatsuya Nakadai) and Nobukado (Tsotomu Yamazaki) all sat in the throne room. The impersonator does not speak until near the end of the scene, but our eyes are drawn to him because of his movements – the occasional change in posture or flash of the eyes – and the comparative stillness of the other two. This long unbroken take means the room, with its great floral crest, is imposed into our minds, and resonates later on when we see Nakadai in the same room, now instated as the lord.And despite the distances between camera and cast, the colourful costumes against plain backdrops really puts an emphasis on the people in Kagemusha, allowing them to express themselves through body language more than facial expression. Lead man Tatsuya Nakadai is really adept at this, putting so much feeling into a shrug of his shoulders or a turn of his head. When you see, in this picture, the complex vocal arrangements and stylised movements of the Noh troupe, or the drummers who are able to make two strikes a fraction of a beat apart, you see examples of precise co-ordination in many formal rituals of Japanese culture. Nakadai has that same precision and control over his body, and turns them towards both theatrical gesture and realist reaction. And in those one or two cases in which we get to see his face close-up we see his talent there too, an ability to display a real look of emotional injury.So far there is very little I have said about Kagemusha that one could not also say about the later epic Ran, with the exception of Ran being a little an even bigger production and a little more stylised. So perhaps Kurosawa was right to think of the earlier picture as being a lesser forerunner to the later one. And yet, Kagemusha has the edge over Ran in one aspect. Whereas Ran is a totally dismal and inhumane affair, Kagemusha retains the heart and humanism of Kurosawa's older pictures. Composer Shinichiro Ikebe provides a rousing orchestral score, shot through with a touch of melancholy, and this beautifully matches the tone of the whole piece. It may lack the hopeful message of Seven Samurai or Rashomon, but it has the same warm regard for its characters that, even with a more objective eye, Kurosawa allows us to share in.