Shadow Warrior

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

KAGEMUSHA Directed by Akira Kurosawa Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa and Masato Ide

In 16th century Japan a thief is saved from crucifixion because he looks like Lord Shingen, a clever and determined warlord who may have the strength and wit to unite a feudal nation under his banner. It is his idea to train the criminal as his double, against the day he himself is wounded or otherwise unable to inspire his troops in battle. This, in time, the kagemusha, or "shadow warrior," successfully manages. But then the dying leader conceives the notion of having his stand-in attempt a more difficult impersonation: Shingen wants the kagemusha to take over his life entirely and rule in his stead after his death, which is to be kept secret for three years so that the momentum of his conquests can be maintained.

The 27th film by Akira Kurosawa, 70, Kagemusha sounds like tricky, plot-laden political melodrama. Indeed, there is a lot of story here. On the other hand, there is a lot of film here too, more than 2 1/2 hours of it, even in a truncated "international version." The considerable pleasure of Kagemusha tends to be of the stately visual variety. The old master of Japanese cinema (Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo) may merely allude to material that in younger hands would be the stuff of a passionate play. But Kurosawa's mood now is autumnal and dispassionate. What really interests him is an imagery that can only be termed timeless: the look of an army on the march, silhouetted against a setting sun or outlined against a placid shoreline or engaged in night battle on a ground as mysteriously dark as the midnight sky. The hell-bent arrival of a messenger in a besieging army's encampment, or in a peaceful palace courtyard, becomes a little epiphany on the frantic nature, and perhaps the absurdity, of the world of affairs.

In the end, the double (played with exemplary restraint by Tatsuya Nakadai, who also plays the man he is doubling for) grows into his leadership role, acquiring the wisdom that should accompany leadership. In due course he is undone through ironic circumstances. And after that, one must witness the undoing of Shingen's clan through the misrule of his successor. Kurosawa contemplates ruin as he contemplates glory, with an objective thought as to what can be salvaged from disaster in the way of a momentary beauty, the accidental congeries of color and composition that men create as they go about their often bloody affairs. It is not much. But it is clearly enough to sustain the director. And, as it happens, his audience. --By Richard Schickel

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