Kagemusha

Kagemusha
Theatrical poster
Directed byAkira Kurosawa
Screenplay by
  • Akira Kurosawa
  • Masato Ide
Produced by
StarringTatsuya Nakadai
Cinematography
Edited byAkira Kurosawa (uncredited)[1]
Music byShin'ichirō Ikebe
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release date
  • April 26, 1980 (1980-04-26) (Japan)
Running time
180 minutes
Country
  • Japan
LanguageJapanese
Budget
Box office$33 million (est.)

Kagemusha (影武者, Shadow Warrior) is a 1980 epic jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is set in the Sengoku period of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class criminal who is taught to impersonate the dying daimyō Takeda Shingen to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable clan. Kagemusha is the Japanese term for a political decoy, literally meaning "shadow warrior". The film ends with the climactic 1575 Battle of Nagashino.[5]

The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival (tied with All That Jazz). It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and received other honours. In 2009 the film was voted at No. 59 on the list of The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.[6]

  1. ^ Ritchie, Donald (1998). The Films of Akira Kurosawa (3 ed.). University of California Press. p. 238. ISBN 978-0-520-22037-9.
  2. ^ Galbraith IV 2008, p. 322.
  3. ^ Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History, Scarecrow Press, 1989 p259
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference BOM was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Rayns, Tony (2006). Talking with the Director. Criterion Collection. Criterion Collection. p. 13.
  6. ^ "Greatest Japanese films by magazine Kinema Junpo (2009 version)". Archived from the original on July 11, 2012. Retrieved 2011-12-26.