When a powerful warlord in medieval Japan dies, a poor thief recruited to impersonate him finds difficulty living up to his role and clashes with the spirit of the warlord during turbulent times in the kingdom.
In his late, color masterpiece Kagemusha, Akira Kurosawa returned to the samurai film and to a primary theme of his career — the play between illusion and reality.
Sumptuously reconstructing the splendor of feudal Japan and the pageantry of war, Kurosawa creates a historical epic that is also a meditation on the nature of power. -- The Criterion Collection
Title: Kagemusha | Shadow Warrior | 影武者 (1980)
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa, Ishiro Honda
Date of birth: 23 March 1910, Omori, Tokyo, Japan
Date of death: 6 September 1998, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Writing credits: Akira Kurosawa, Masato Ide
Music: Shinichirô Ikebe
Year: 1980
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Color: Color
Runtime: 179 min.