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By
WAYNE KLEIN
An examination of
performance and how we can become the person
others expect us to be, "Kagemusha" focuses on a
petty thief who is suddenly thrust into the role
of leading people into battle. Set during the 16th
century when Warlords ruled Japan, "Kagemusha"
tells the story of the ruler Lord Shingen (Tatsuya
Nakadai) leader of the Takeda clan who has held
chaos and his enemies at bay for decades. His land
is prosperous and doing well. When he's killed by
a sniper, Shingen's brother proposes putting a
double who has an uncanny resemblance to Shingen
in the hopes of keeping the rival clans from
invading and ousting the ruling Takeda clan out.
He uses Shingen's last wish as his excuse to bring
in this double a petty thief (Nakadai as well);
Shingen insisted that no one be told of his death.
Unfortunately, his enemies do hear rumors of his
death and they send spies in to confirm whether or
not he is dead. Suddenly, the "shadow warrior" is
thrust into the limelight and must lead the clan
against its enemies.
A staggering and stunning epic Kurosawa's film
benefits from the fact that he painted and
sketched out many of the major scenes for the film
over a four-year period while he waited for
financing for this major project. A warning to
those expecting a "Die Hard" style action film;
the action set pieces are stunning and brilliantly
realized as only Kurosawa could do but like many
of his films Kurosawa let's the story unwind at a
leisurely pace. The first hour sets up the final
hour and forty minutes. Kurosawa was in disfavor
with the Japanese studios through much of the 70's
and spent most of his newly discovered free time
working out the storyline for this film and
painting key moments so he could at least imagine
the story for himself. Like Hitchcock, Kurosawa
would often begin with a series of arresting
images and build his story around them. This
explains why so many of Kurosawa's films are so
visually arresting and mesmerizing.
Painstakingly remastered using a restored high
definition digital transfer, "Kagemusha" hasn't
looked this good since it was originally released
and I doubt that many prints were as free of dirt
and debris as this version which was run through a
digital filter to clean it up. There's a fine
audio commentary by Stephen Prince author of "The
Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa."
Prince has some very interesting insights into
Kurosawa's world and that of Japanese cinema. The
subtitles are much improved and easier to read as
well. There's also a 48-page book featuring
paintings, sketches and an interview with Kurosawa
around the time of this film's release from SIGHT
& SOUND magazine. There's also an excerpt from a
book by Japanese film historian Donald Richie and
a new essay by film scholar Peter Grilli
discussing the film and the difficulty Kurosawa
had in getting the film made.
The second disc features a number of great extras.
There's a brand new interview with George Lucas
and Francis Ford Coppola discussing how they got
involved in financing Kurosawa's epic film. They
basically got Fox involved as distributor and
co-financer with Toho studios so that Kurosawa
could get it made. Ironically, both met Kurosawa
but found out that the director needed financing
from a third party, as the director didn't feel he
knew them well enough to ask for their help.
There's also a 40 minute documentary on the making
of the film entitled "Akira Kurosawa: It Is
Wonderful to Create." There's also a wonderful
supplement that runs about 45 minutes using
Kurosawa's original paintings, sketches and
drawings reconstructing much of the film showing
how closely the final film matched his original
paintings. Finally we get the original teasers and
trailer for the film (there are on the first disc)
along with a comparison between storyboard and
finished film sequences.
Overall a first rate presentation from Criterion
and well worth the investment. I'm looking forward
to their eventual release of "Ran" Kurosawa's last
epic masterpiece on DVD. Nobody could interpret
Shakespeare as well as Kurosawa. |
