Kagemusha (1980)

Note des utilisateurs:

7.9/10   

Réalisateur:

Akira Kurosawa

Writers:

Masato Ide (writer)
Akira Kurosawa (writer)

Release Date:

6 octobre 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Drame | History | War

Plot:

When a powerful warlord in medieval Japan dies, a poor thief recruited to impersonate him finds difficulty...

Plot Keywords:

Japan | Warrior | Double | Substitution | Honor

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 19 wins & 3 nominations

Avis des utilisateurs:

Another spectacular samurai film from Akira Kurosawa.

Ensemble

Tatsuya Nakadai	...	Shingen Takeda / Kagemusha
Tsutomu Yamazaki	...	Nobukado Takeda
Kenichi Hagiwara	...	Katsuyori Takeda
Jinpachi Nezu	...	Sohachiro Tsuchiya
Hideji Otaki	...	Masakage Yamagata
Daisuke Ryu	...	Nobunaga Oda
Masayuki Yui	...	Ieyasu Tokugawa
Kaori Momoi	...	Otsuyanokata
Mitsuko Baisho	...	Oyunokata
Hideo Murota	...	Nobufusa Baba
Takayuki Shiho	...	Masatoyo Naito
Koji Shimizu	...	Katsusuke Atobe
Noboru Shimizu	...	Masatane Hara
Sen Yamamoto	...	Nobushige Oyamada
Shuhei Sugimori	...	Masanobu Kosaka
Kota Yui	...	Takemaru
Yasuhito Yamanaka	...	Ranmaru Mori
Kumeko Otowa	...	Takemaru's Nurse
Tetsuo Yamashita	...	Nagahide Niwa
Kai Ato	...	Zenjiro Amemiya
Takashi Ebata	...	Monk
Hiroshi Shimada	...	Jingoro Hara
Yutaka Shimaka	...	Jingoro Hara
Toshiaki Tanabe	...	Kugutsushi
Yoshimitsu Yamaguchi	...	Salt Vendor
Eiichi Kanakubo	...	Kenshin Uesugi
Akihiko Sugizaki	...	Noda Castle Soldier
Yugo Miyazaki
Masatsuga Kuriyama
Norio Matsui	...	Tadatsugu Sakai
Jiro Yabuki
Yasushi Doshida	...	Kazumasa Ishikawa
Takashi Watanabe
Nobaru Sone	...	Heihachiro Honda (as Nori Sone)
Eihachi Ito
Senkichi Omura
Takashi Shimura	...	Gyobu Taguchi
Kamatari Fujiwara	...	Doctor
reste de la distribution par ordre alphabétique:
Francis Selleck	...	Priest (as Francis Seleck)

Réalisé par
Akira Kurosawa

Scénaristes (in alphabetical order)
Masato Ide		writer
Akira Kurosawa		writer

Produit par
Audie Bock	....	assistant producer
Francis Ford Coppola	....	executive producer: international version
Akira Kurosawa	....	executive producer
Akira Kurosawa	....	producer
George Lucas	....	executive producer: international version
Tomoyuki Tanaka	....	executive producer

Musique originale
Shinichirô Ikebe

Image
Takao Saitô
Masaharu Ueda		(as Shoji Ueda)

Direction artistique
Yoshirô Muraki

Création des costumes
Seiichiro Hagakusawa

Maquillage
Yoshiko Matsumoto	....	hair stylist
Shigeo Tamura	....	hair stylist
Junjiro Yamada	....	hair stylist

Directeur de production
Akira Fujita	....	unit production manager
Toshiaki Hashimoto	....	production manager
Toshiaki Hashimoto	....	unit production manager

Assistant réalisateur
Ishirô Honda	....	second unit director
Hideyuki Inoue	....	assistant director
Takashi Koizumi	....	assistant director
Fumiryo Okada	....	chief assistant director
Takao Okawara	....	assistant director

Art Department
Aki Saburagi	....	assistant art director
Hatsumi Yamamoto	....	property master

Technicien du son
Ichirô Minami	....	sound effects editor
Mamoru Yamada	....	assistant sound recordist
Fumio Yanoguchi	....	sound recordist

Camera and Electrical Department
Naomi Hashiyama	....	still photographer
Satoshi Kurikihara	....	assistant lighting technician
Tamio Matsuo	....	assistant camera
Kazuo Miyagawa	....	consultant: photography
Asakazu Nakai	....	consultant: photography
Takeji Sano	....	lighting technician

Editorial Department
Yoshihiro Iwatani	....	assistant editor
Tome Minami	....	negative cutter

Music Department
Kotaro Saito	....	conductor

Transportation Department
Isamu Miwano	....	transportation

Divers
Audie Bock	....	assistant to producer (international version)
Francis Ford Coppola	....	presenter
Masa Furugawara	....	scene shifter
Toshi Hasegawa	....	horseback riding instructor
Shinobu Hashimoto	....	production advisor
Hiroaki Honda	....	acting office
Ishirô Honda	....	directorial advisor
Ishirô Honda	....	production coordinator
Ryu Kuze	....	instructor: samurai etiquette
George Lucas	....	presenter
Teruyo Nogami	....	assistant to producer
Teruyo Nogami	....	script supervisor
Donald Richie	....	subtitle supervisor (US version)
Donald Richie	....	subtitler (international version)
Takao Saitô	....	production advisor
Tamihei Shirai	....	horseback riding instructor
Ishirô Honda	....	creative consultant (uncredited)
Michael Rich	....	assistant to director (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Kurosawa Production Co.
• Toho Company
• Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (in association)

Distributors

• Toho Company (1980) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (1980) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2005) (USA) (DVD)
• Abril Vídeo (????) (Brazil) (VHS)
• Criterion Collection, The (2009) (USA) (DVD) (Blu-ray)
• Fox Video (????) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• Fox (1980) (Sweden) (theatrical)
• Svensk Filmindustri (SF) (2004) (Sweden) (DVD)

Technicien des effets spéciaux

• Toho Special Effects Group

Other Companies

• Ehime Castle  
• Iga Ueno Castle  
• JAL  
• Kumamoto Castle  
• Kyoto Costumes  costumes
• Mimatsu  costumes
• New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra  orchestra
• Toho Recording Center  sound re-recording
• Toho Sound Effects Group  sound effects
• Toho Studios  sound stages
• Tokyo Concerts  orchestra

Autre(s) titre(s):

Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior)
Kagemusha the Shadow Warrior
Shadow Warrior
The Double
Kagemusha - Director's Cut (France) (director's cut) [fr]
Kagemusha, l'ombre du guerrier (France) [fr]

Durée:

180 min | Argentina:162 min | USA:162 min

Pays:

Japan

Langue:

Japonais

Couleur:

Couleur (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Son:

Dolby

Classification:

Iceland:12 | South Korea:12 (1998) | Portugal:M/12 | Australia:PG | Sweden:15 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12 | Singapore:PG

Emplacements De Pelliculage:

Gotemba, Shizuoka, Japan

Company:

Kurosawa Production Co.

Anecdotes:

Shintarô Katsu was originally slated to play the lead role but he was dismissed by Kurasawa after Katsu came to a rehearsal with a video camera and said he wanted to document the experience for an acting class he was teaching.

Guillemet:

Masakage Yamagata: How old are you, sire? Fifty-three, as I remember.
Shingen Takeda: Why?
Masakage Yamagata: And you still behave like a five-year-old child. People gather, scatter, they go left and right following their interests. That is not surprising. But then I find you like this. With such a narrow mind, you must not dream of rulership. Go back to your own domain. You are a mountain monkey. You should be gathering nuts in the mountains of Kai.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Brazil (1985)

Another spectacular samurai film from Akira Kurosawa.

Kagemusha is one of Kurosawa's later films, in which he deals with such themes as vicarious existence and other personal illusions. One of the main ideas in the film is that if you deny your own personality as an individual and take on the superficial appearance of someone else, you may experience gain and even happiness, but eventually you are sure to be forced back to being yourself again, and you may find yourself worse off than before. There is a piece of dialogue in the film that very clearly backs this up. The late Lord Shingen's brother, in an emotional scene, says, `I was once in my brother's shadow. Now that I have lost him, it is as though I am nothing.'

Kagemusha is the story of three different warlords who are all fighting for sole leadership of Japan. This premise is the foundation for the plot of the film. When one of the warlords is killed by a sniper, his clan tries to keep his death a secret so they can avoid invasion and defeat at the hands of the other two clans. In order to do that, they make use of a petty thief who bears a striking resemblance to the late Lord Shingen, and he is put in the place of Shingen so that his death is not known by the other clans. At first, this thief (known as Kagemusha), revels in the luxury and comfort of being in the place of Lord Shingen. He is thrilled to be the king, and he literally becomes the leader of the clan simply because he bore such a strong resemblance to the previous leader. As his true identity gradually becomes clear, the other clans begin to investigate his death, suspecting that he is not really dead. Kagemusha's true identity is soon discovered (although in the story, he remained in Lord Shingen's place for over two years), and he is coarsely cast out of the castle and into exile. Kagemusha is left to helplessly witness the subsequent overthrow and destruction of the clan, over which he understandably seems to have developed some paternal feelings. He must now live his life with the feeling that he failed all of those people and was responsible for the destruction of their clan.

When we are first introduced to Kagemusha (in the opening scene of the film), we find out immediately that he is a petty thief, as Lord Shingen and one of his advisors are discussing (in his presence) his striking and almost disturbing resemblance to Shingen. For the vast majority of the rest of the film, Kagemusha is seen in the place of Lord Shingen, and he is ironically more likeable than the late Lord. He is more humorous, he treats his mistresses better, he even gets along with the Lord's own immediate family (especially Takemaru) better than Shingen did, so the audience is able to develop a very positive attitude toward him. However, it is always subtly known that he is still the thief that was picked off the streets early in the film, and this is the life to which he eventually is forced to return.

There is a fairly significant example of irony in Kagemusha, because of the events following Kagemusha's ‘inauguration' into the place of Lord Shingen. He is a petty thief in real life, and he is put into the place of Shingen for no other reason than that he looks so much like him, yet he turns out to be a very competent leader. His skill in making decisions led to the victory of many battles; it even seemed that he was a more capable leader in this way than the rest of Shingen's council. It is ironic that a thief could be picked off the streets and put into a position of power, and lead as skillfully as Kagemusha does.

Kurosawa utilizes extensive long takes, employing a film technique that seems to draw more attention to the story itself rather than the cinematography. As is almost a Kurosawa trademark, there are many shots in the film where the camera as well as the characters on screen are largely motionless, but they are engaged in significant an often heated conversation. Keeping in mind that Kagemusha is at least partly a war film, this particular technique suggests that Kurosawa wanted the audience to have a deep understanding of the story behind the film, and he used this muted technique to make sure that people were not distracted during important scenes. Kurosawa uses this realistic filmmaking technique to allow the characters tell the story, rather than to fill the movie with fancy camera tricks. Very unobtrusive, with incredible results.