Kagemusha (Kurosawa 1980) 528x288 H264.nfo
Kagemusha (Kurosawa 1980) 528x288 H264
Kagemusha (1980)
PG | 2h 42min* | Drama, History, War | 10 October 1980 (USA)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080979/
Rating: 8.0
A petty thief with an utter resemblance to a samurai warlord is hired
as the lord's double. When the warlord later dies the thief is forced
to take up arms in his place.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Writers: Masato Ide, Akira Kurosawa
Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Ken'ichi Hagiwara
File: MP4
File size: 715 MB
*Duration: 3:00:33 (full Japanese version)
Video: H.264/AVC 528 x 288
Audio: AAC 2-ch 96 Kbits
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English, muxed (switchable); External SRT also incl.
NOTES:
Please ignore the spurious second subtitles track.
In this, the original Japanese version, there are 20 minutes featuring
Kenshin Uesugi. For some reason, these scenes were cut out of the USA
version.
Review by Dan Jardine (Allmovie.com)
Kagemusha was an atypical entry in the canon of Akira Kurosawa, the
master of the samurai epic. At the time, Kurosawa was gradually losing
his eyesight, and his films were developing an increasingly impressive
visual splendor. However, in Kagemusha, the action sequences are much
less thrilling than in Kurosawa's other samurai epics. Here his focus
is on character development and philosophical discourse. The film
swings like a pendulum between stillness and action, an occasionally
jarring mix of David Lean-like panoramas with intimate character study.
In Kagemusha (which translates as "shadow warrior"), Kurosawa examines
the concept of the double as a means to delve into enigmatic and
paradoxical philosophical issues of identity, power, self-worth, and
leadership. At first, Tatsuya Nakadai appears a little stiff in the
essential dual role of warlord and thief, but his performance relies on
subtle differences of intonation and gesture to reveal the evolution of
his character. As always, Kurosawa's exploration of the values of
feudal Japan provokes contemporary audiences to make parallels with
modern Japan, a tendency that did not necessarily endear him to his
countrymen. In fact, by 1980 Kurosawa was such a persona non grata in
Japan that he had not made a film in five years: Kagemusha would not
have been made without the financial assistance of George Lucas and
Francis Ford Coppola.
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