Review of Kagemusha (1980) by Beth W — 21 Mar 2014

This is the third film I have seen by Kurosawa after "Rashomon" and "Ran", and while I admit it didn't engage me as much as the other two films did, and at times it seems rather slow, I have come to appreciate it more over the past few days since I got my hands on it.

I love the fact that the tragedy that occurs in this film seems to come from the little actions the characters do, such as Shingen dying from a gunshot wound simply because he wanted to listen to a flute, the downfall of the Takeda clan brought about because Shingen's son simply wanted to stand out from his father and so on.

As ever in a Kurosawa film, the imagery is incredible and often it is clear the man knew what he wanted when he shot this.