Review of Kagemusha (1980) by Frédéric I — 01 Jul 2010

Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" is one of those tremendously long films that somehow never drags. Regardless of your opinion on the movie, there is one thing everybody agrees on: there is beauty painted all over the screen.

There's not a badly-lit or badly-composed frame in the entire film. We get a surreal, array-flooded nightmare sequence, gorgeous landscape shots, majestic views of the ocean, and much more. Kurosawa always storyboarded his films using painting as opposed to sketches and here he just let loose an array of passion and colors that undoubtedly mirror what he did while trying to sell the story to distributors.

Like he would do with "Ran", although not quite to the same extent, Kurosawa graphically re-enacts violence with an artistic, but harrowing nature that is completely foreign to the glorified, stimulating duels of "Yojimbo.

" Blood is let loose in torrents throughout the film, but Kurosawa does not overdo it to the point where it might condescend into some kind of an unintentional comedy. The climax of the movie, a recreation of the 1575 Battle of Nagashino brilliantly generates a reaction from the audience and the famous four-minute montage of death and suffering that follows is truly gripping.

The running time of "Kagemusha" will question the full extent of its audience as will the scenes where very little happens for a while, but for those who appreciate a good movie and have three hours to spare, this is a tremendously enthralling experience.

"Kagemusha" boasts a lot of exterior display, but unlike a great many other movies that have the same accolade of looking good, Kurosawa's movie shows beauty beneath as well, on the human level, encompassing the audience with a heck of a story.

It had me drawn in right from the very beginning. This is the definition of a motion picture.