Kagemusha--Kurosawa's other Ran

Though many of Akira Kurosawa's more famous pictures were in black and white (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, High and Low for instance), and the director utilized the photography gorgeously, what he could do with color was oftentimes astonishing. Ran(1985), which is most often looked upon as the masterpiece of his later career, is painterly pageantry. But Kagemusha, his 1980 samurai epic, stands directly next to Ran in its grandeur, violence, and poetic blush.

In contrast, however, Kagemusha has a distinctly off feel—a strange sensation of irony and stiffness mixed with sweeping spectacle that the viewer can never fully absorb. It's a tough movie to wrap your mind around, and one with a long wind-up time; it's somewhat tedious at the starting gate. Patience is key. And yet, once it gets going, you can't take your eyes off the thing.

It should earn some new fans with this thick Criterion release—a two-disc special edition that presents for the first time, the Japanese version of the film (20 minutes are added from the North American "International Version"). A picture that was a longstanding obsession for the director, and one that was made after a decade of personal problems, Kagemusha was initially rejected for financial backing in Japan. After various hardships and a personal crisis (a suicide attempt), Kurosawa was aided by American directors Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas in getting money to make the movie. Set in 1570's feudal Japan , the film begins during a raging civil war. A hired assassin shoots the esteemed leader Shingen, leaving the fate of the country to two rival warlords. But Shingen's clan, ahead of the game, grants the leader's wishes in keeping his death a secret. Taking the place for Shingen is lowly thief Takeda (the fantastic Tatsuya Nakadai in a dual role), a man who's about to lose his life until he's presented to Shingen by the lord's brother (Tsutomu Yamazaki). As Shingen will die, Takeda is to impersonate the warlord and prevent his enemies from gaining control.

The thrust of the film is to show what kind of person Takeda, a man of no consequence, becomes once he takes on the role of lord. He wins over those who know his secret and strikes fear in those who do not. It's an intriguing premise that shows how the criminal must act the leader (tricking women he's slept with) and become something of a different person in the process. Cynically, the film asserts that one reason Takeda can so well pull off the ruse is because there was nothing but a shadow to the leader anyway. Once you anoint yourself as something larger than yourself, who are you?

With layers to explore here, the DVD's audio commentary track (on disc one) by Stephen Prince, author of the Akira Kurosawa biography, "The Warriors Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa," grants insight well beyond the film itself. Prince details the genesis of the production, speaks about Kurosowa's difficulties, and relates specific elements of this picture to others in Kurosawa's canon. It's nice to listen to someone who came prepared, and you get a three-hour history lesson with this track. Also on this disc are the American theatrical trailer, the Japanese theatrical trailer, and the Japanese teaser trailer.

Disc two gives viewer's the goods with a 19-minute documentary, Helping A Master: Coppola, Lucas, and Kagemusha. Since Lucas and Coppola served as executive producers on this film, the doc goes into how the directors became involved in getting both Kagemusha off the ground and into the US and how much influence Kurosawa had on their work. Next is Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful To Create, a fascinating 41-minute, Japanese-made documentary detailing the making of Kagemusha. It really underscores how important the film is in Kurosawa's oeuvre and gets into the personal trials the filmmaker had in making it. A 40-minute featurette entitled Image: Kurosawa's Continuity uses the director's original paintings and audio from the picture to analyze the film. Next up is A Vision Realized, a detailed storyboard-to-film comparison that offers even more proof of how meticulous Kurosawa was. Last, for the curio factor, the disc shows three vintage commercials for Suntory Whiskey featuring Akira Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola. The commercials were shot on the set of the film and are an amusing addition to this serious, loaded disc. On top of that, the disc gives us a beautiful booklet inside the keep case with essays by Darrell Davis and Peter Grill and paintings by Kurosawa. Truly deserving the term Special Edition, this high-quality disc is perfectly befitting such a complicated, sumptuous film.