Japan 1572: A terrible blood feud rules between the hostile clans Takeda and Tokugawa. Shingen Takeda, leader of the Takeda clan, pardons a thief, due to his resemblance to himself and gives him a job as his kagemusha. Kagemusha where during the sengoku-era doppelganger for their lords, to imitate and protect them.
During the siege of an enemy fortress, Shingen Takeda is fataly wounded. To avoid disorder amongst the ranks of the soldiers, the generals use the resemblance of Takedas doppelganger. His doppelganger must now try to convince Takedas clan of himself and be a good puppet for the generals to win the war against the Tokugawa clan.
Kagemusha is one of the most imposing pieces of samurai cinema by Akira Kurosawa. The movie, taking place during a time of Japanese history full of myths and legends, creates from nothing a new one about the fate of a doppelganger. Kurosawa experiments much with colour, one the one hand with the samurai armour, on the other with the entire Japanese environment.
In its early stages, the movie would have never been produced, had there not been to young American directors, which involved themselves much in its production: George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola.
Carlo Oswald
