'Kagemusha' - Movie Review

I'll start with a quote from Wikipedia's entry on the movie: "... kagemusha is a term used to denote a political decoy." The movie opens with the leader of the Takeda clan examining a possible kagemusha that his brother has found. The man is a thief who was to be killed, but he's essentially identical to the lord. When they put him in play, they find that while he's somewhat uncertain, he's a passable actor and fairly clever about fitting into the role. Unfortunately, the actual lord is shortly murdered and for various reasons it appears to be better to try to maintain the ruse for a period of three years. There are about 12 people who are in on the secret, and possibly the least happy about this plan is the lord's son - the lord's generals have chosen to keep an imposter in the role for three years rather than letting him assume the title. So there's internal strife as well as external, as the clan's enemies try to figure out why the lord didn't die of the gunshot wound they're pretty sure he received ...

I enjoyed the beginning, which was interesting political wrangling. But the movie runs 180 minutes, and Kurosawa wasn't using this to create a more complex or detailed story, but instead spent the time on lingering shots and drawn out scenes - often beautiful, but so long that I several times felt like yelling at the TV "the point is made, move on!" It's not a bad movie, but it's too long-winded and the ending is deeply Japanese (the noble and pointless sacrifice).