In 1980 the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa directed the film "Kagemusha" (The Shadow
Warrior). In Japanese the word Kagemusha
means political decoy. The film is a work of art, tells the story of a humble
man trained to impersonate the Takeda clan leader, the "Daimyo" Shingen.
Here we see when the double is presented to the general. The
double looks so much like the Daimyo, and is so
well trained to imitate his gestures, that all his generals, including his son
and heir Katsuyori, think the double is the real Daimyo until the truth is revealed:
Kagemusha is introduced to the generals
The Kagemusha, or double, is not considered very
useful until the Daimyo Shingen has the misfortune of being wounded during the
siege of an enemy castle. When he realizes he´s mortally wounded he call his
generals, including the heir (his son
Katsuyori), and tells them he´s very
sick and is going to die, but that his
death should be kept a secret.
The Daimyo was very concerned that his heir wasn´t ready to take over the clan´s leadership.
Knowing that his enemies would seize the opportunity to destroy the clan if
they saw it weakened by an inexperienced
leader, he decided to be temporarily replaced by his double until Katsuyori
learned the job.
In this scene we see when the Daimyo Shingen, lucid
but very ill, explaining his plan to his
generals:
Dying, Shingen reveals his plan
In the film the two characters, the Daimyo and his
double are the same actor. Therefore it´s not surprising to see they look and make the
same gestures. I guess in real life, if this happened, the Kagemusha must have looked
a lot like the general, because at that time there wasn´t plastic surgery. He also must have practiced
the general´s gestures and his way of speaking to have done such a perfect job.
The film ends when the heir Katsuyori fired the
double, ignored the advice of his generals, and attacked the rival clan at the wrong time,
which lead to the defeat at the Battle of Nagashino.
Since the double was such a perfect actor, history
can´t tell us the exact
time when the double began his performance
and when the real Daimyo Shingen died. The Kagemusha dies at the end of this battle along with Katsuyori and most
of the Takeda clan´s army.
History tells us the victory at Nagashino allowed the
great Tokugawa Ieyasu to win the
Japanese civil war and to become Japan´s Shogun.
Battle of Nagashino by Nathan Ledbetter
Tokugawa Ieyasu´s Biography
Akira Kurosawa´s Criterion Collection Overview
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario