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Kagemusha
影武者
1980 · Film · 180 min
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
A feudal epic presenting the tale of a petty thief who is recruited to impersonate Shingen, an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. The impostor becomes comfortable living his life among nobility, but his responsibilities to his station grow more demanding the longer he occupies it.
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3 comments on Hacker News
"samurai" movies:
- Seven Samurai
- Rashomon
- Ran
- Throne of Blood
- Kagemusha
non-samurai:
- High and Low
- Ikiru
I would say that the essentials are Seven Samurai, High and Low, Rashomon.
Agreed about his early black-and-white work, but I'm also familiar enough with his masterful use of color in films like "Ran" and "Kagemusha" that this doesn't surprise me. Kurosawa really was a genius.
The YouTube channel Every Frame a Painting has an entire episode dedicated to Kurosawa's use of motion in his films. It's fascinating. I have to say that frames from even his earlier films look like paintings to me.
I'll check some of these I haven't seen out. He's got a Hitchcock and Kurosawa film on there, and they're two of the finest directors of all time. Rashomon is actually one of my least favorite Kurosawa films, but it's still great - I just much more greatly like Ran (English: "Chaos", his best film), Ikiru ("Life", it drags towards the middle but the government council scene at the end is incredible), Kagemusha ("Shadow", wow what an incredible premise - really an overlooked masterpiece when looking at his career), and of course Seven Samurai. Then you've got Yojimbo which is an interesting story but kind of campy, and Rashomon which is a great piece of storytelling and a great piece of directing, but just isn't as satisfying of an experience as Ran, Ikiru, Kagemusha, or Seven Samurai. If I was recommending Kurosawa to a new viewer, I'd say watch them in that order, and then perhaps Rashomon.
I haven't seen all of Hitchcock's films, but it's something I've been meaning to do. The thing both of these directors (Kurosawa and Hitchcock) have in common - they're both absolutely obsessed with presentation. They don't waste a single scene in their movies. In their better films, Kurosawa and Hitchcock don't even waste a single shot - everything is perfectly constructed for a very specific reason. Really incredible experiences to watch them, and highly recommended for people who love movies, stories, or simply just art.