Kagemusha (1980, Akira Kurosawa) with Michael Repsch - Criterion Collection Spine #267

"Is our identity predetermined or something we can create?"

In this episode of Why This Film?, I'm joined by Michael Repsch, President of Dark Star Pictures, to explore Kagemusha - Akira Kurosawa's sweeping historical epic and Criterion Collection Spine #267.

Released in 1980, Kagemusha follows a thief who is spared execution because of his uncanny resemblance to the powerful warlord Takeda Shingen. When Shingen dies, the thief is forced to assume his identity, and the fate of the entire clan depends on if the illusion can be sustained.

Michael brings his perspective as a longtime film distributor who has helped release over 200 films and now leads Dark Star Pictures. He discusses what makes Kagemusha endure not only as a viewer, but as someone who understands how films are preserved and passed on to new audiences.

Together, we move through the film scene by scene and discuss:

• Akira Kurosawa's style and use of color, shadow, and movement
• How Kagemusha differs from the traditional samurai epic
• Themes of identity, power, and succession
• Why the film rewards repeated viewings
• Why Kagemusha remains one of the most visually stunning, thought-provoking, and essential films in the Criterion Collection

Hollywood ManeStays - Not a pin, not a clip. Just Better.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Is our identity predetermined? It's tied to our blood or family, or is it something we can create? Is it something that we can project and something that can be better when we do that?

Ron 0:33

Hello everybody, my name is Ron and welcome to Why This Film, a podcast where we explore the artistry, cultural impact, and legacy of movies in the Criterion Collection. Each episode I sit down with experts in Cinefiles to ask why was this film chosen for the collection? And why is it still mattered today? In this episode, we're stepping into the Shadow of Power with Kagemusha, Criterion Spy number 267, the 1980 film from director Akira Kurosawa. Park historical epic, political drama, and meditation on identity, Kagamusha follows a thief who is spared execution and forced to serve as a double for a dying warlord. As he's drawn deeper into the role, the line between illusion and reality begins to dissolve. And with that, the fate of the entire clan comes to depend on whether the performance can be sustained. Rendered through Kurosawa's incredible use of color, composition, and scale, the film unfolds in a deliberate rhythm. What emerges is a story that depends entirely on belief and what it costs to keep that illusion from falling apart. My guest today is Michael Redsch, president of Darkstar Pictures and a film distributor with extensive experience bringing independent and international cinema to audiences. A graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Michael has distributed over 200 films throughout his career. He previously served as senior vice president of distribution and sales at Breaking Glass Pictures, where he oversaw digital festivals and theatrical releases across a wide range of titles. In 2017, Mike launched Darkstar Pictures, a company focused on curating and releasing distinctive films that might otherwise go unseen, giving him a unique perspective on how films find their audiences and endure over time. Mike's work sits at the intersection of cinema and distribution, making him the perfect guest to help unpack a film like Kagimusha, a movie that isn't just about what we see on screen, but how meaning is shaped, preserved, and passed on. And with that, here's my conversation with Mike Reps. What was your first exposure to Akira Kurosawa?

SPEAKER_01 2:22

This is an easy one. This is a very important one in my life. It was a rep screening of the seven samurai at a really sticky movie theater in Philadelphia called the Devon. You would leave your shoes on the floor kind of thing. It was so sticky. I grew up in inner city Philadelphia. It's interesting to say growing up in inner city Philadelphia makes you sheltered, but you only know the city. And especially because Philadelphia is such a neighborhood-centric place. And when I saw the Seven Samurai, it was a really interesting look into a whole different world. And I was hypnotized by it. And I had been familiar with some Kung Fu stuff because my brother was into Kung Fu stuff with the bad dubs, but that this was not that. This was so much deeper, so much texture. I made a three-hour black and white film. You know, I'm just a kid. And I saw that, and uh that really opened me up to not only like that there are other places in the world, because at that point in my life I'd been to the Jersey Shore, I've been to the Poconos, been to Florida, you know, I've been to Philadelphia, but you know, to see feudal Japan, Chris Owl was my gateway to that. And then that of course led me to all other areas of the world. I started to look at Godard and Fellini, other Japanese masters like Ozu and things like this, where it really kind of opened my eyes to world cinema as well as just kind of these different cultures that I wasn't super familiar with or would have been introduced to anyway at that at this young age. You know, I'm talking maybe 12 years old. When you saw Kirosawa, it was it was just something else. Now I have a career in film. So literally Kirisawa is that first door for me.

Ron 4:02

My first was high and low. That was almost an accident. It was looking for something to watch. Had heard of this Japanese director. Okay, I'll I'll give this a shot. It's not three hours. That was really the maybe I won't start with seven samurai.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

That yeah.

Ron 4:17

And then I couldn't stop eating it up. High and low, I've never seen anything blocked like that before. I've never seen the importance of sight lines of characters and where they're placed, and not just where they're placed across the frame, but the levels, the height of the where they are in the frame. I'd never seen anything like that that I actually could understand. I hate to say it like that, but he makes it almost not obvious, but he makes it accessible. And then I couldn't then I was like, okay, what else does he have? Like I gotta see more of this. And you're right, it is a gateway drug to all the other world cinema that is out there, and then you just can't stop.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

And it's infinite almost in terms of where you can go. Now, did you watch the Spike Lee remake? I did. Go on.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Okay.

Ron 5:04

I watched it. My feelings as well. Yeah, I watched it. I I appreciate the fact that he also loves Kurosawa, and it wasn't an attempt to outdo him. I looked at it as okay, this is a love letter to someone that was influential to him. And I and then I left it at that. Will I watch it again? Probably not. Where does Kagamusha rank for you in the Kurosawa catalog?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, it would be it would be in the top five because I mean like in Ran I find more tedious than Kagamusha. And I know it has more action, but like I I put those two kind of next to each other because they're the epics in color. What five movies in color? During the Japanese Civil War, a few civil wars, if you will. I look at those, of course, um Anna's King Lear, uh, while Kagamusha is historically based. And I think it's a more important film. I I think it's more beautiful. It could use some more violence because I do like action and violence in in movies, but uh but I I think the spirit of it and the themes of it and also how how it got made. Kagamusha gets shit on frequently. Shit on relatively speaking.

Ron 6:13

Sure. I think he was a victim of his own success, his earlier success in in some respect. How familiar are you with the Japanese history around this time? Because I knew zero. The only stuff that I know now is because of the deep dive into the film itself. I'm scratching the surface of what I learned about this time period.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

I know a little bit more than you, but I'm no master. Again, I was I was fascinated with samurai's and the culture. Uh when I first watched Kagamusha, I had no clue what any of this was. It was really hard to follow. Good.

Ron 6:46

I'm I'm so glad that you said that because they all have the same haircut too.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

And then the facial Well, the first scene, first scene, they're all wearing the same clothes. I was like, who are these people? Well, that's intentional, right? Uh but but I mean, like the you know, I start to identify people by their facial hair, and I'm like, okay, got it, got it, got it. But then in college, I thought it would be a really cool idea to take this samurai course, thinking it was gonna be like we're gonna watch samurai movies. And uh no, it turned out it was an EALC Eastern Asian Language and Cultures master's class. Everyone in the class spoke fluent Japanese, they were all getting a master's degree, and I'm an undergrad, and I just thought it would be cool to take a samurai course. I stuck with it, but so I got some historical background on a lot of this, and in particular, samurais played roles throughout all of the important wars in Japan in the Eno period. There's so much to absorb, and it's difficult and a lot. I would say I'm a little bit more knowledgeable than you were on this. Yeah. I'm sure that would have helped. I got an A in that course, by the way.

Ron 7:51

See, all right. You're let's let's talk a little bit about how this film was made because Karl Saw was having disagreements about the budget. He was worried that this wasn't gonna get made. And there's a quote where he said, I wanted everyone in the world to at least see the images I had in my mind. And there's a supplement to this criterion release, which I know you're a physical media collector, so I'm just gonna assume that you have this.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Of course.

Ron 8:12

There is a supplement, it's called continuity. And what they do is they show the watercolor paintings that Kurosawa created and the sound that they have playing over top are it's not dialogue, because we would I would not be able to understand what they were saying, but it's recognizable score and sound that is happening in those particular scenes. And I was absolutely amazed because it looks so incredibly similar to what he had in his mind that he was able to paint, and he was able to get that on the screen. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

65 years old doing this, and again, remember they're they're super colorful storyboards, and you know, the man worked in black and white movies for the majority of his career. It only made two movies in color before this one. So, but I think and the budget is huge because you know, look at all those horses. It's expensive to have horses on screen. I don't know how much insurance you need in Japan, but in America, you have that many horses, you have you that would be a crazy budget.

Ron 9:10

But well, he was working with Toho, right? Like Toho was his product production company that he always worked with. There was a disagreement, and he needed X amount more, and he wasn't able to secure it through Toho, correct?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, so and it's it's sad because it's the industry is still like this. It's what have you done for me lately? And Kirisowa's last couple movies didn't really do much for Toho. It was a different time. He wasn't as familiar again, working in color and what people wanted. Actors that he wanted to hire, they didn't want that. They wanted what this actor, and Kirisau did not work like that. So he he has this kind of reputation of being a little bit difficult in production, very long production schedules. That's why Toshir Mufune stopped working with him because Toshir Mufune wanted to work constantly and he wanted to be on a lot of television. I think he had a lot of kids or something going on where he needed a lot of money. Um, and so he he couldn't work with Kirisau anymore. They had a big disagreement after Redbeard or during Redbeard. So Kirisau was coming with this huge budget of movie with his last couple not performing very well and being a little bit difficult for the studio. So they don't want to give him what he wants. And this leads to what I think is one of the most important pieces of in terms of the film business happenings, which was two of the largest, the most profitable American filmmakers come in to save this because of the influence that this master filmmaker has had on them. On George Lucas and Francis Corkoppla, and then Coppola introduces Kirsawa to Lucas, two people who have been greatly influenced by this filmmaker.

Ron 10:44

Look at the height of those two guys in the mid-70s.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

They're at the you're talking about you can't get higher than that. Well, it's the movie brat period. So the only other name you need there is Spielberg, then you got you've got the three. Corsese because Corsese was still kind of he was he was still he wasn't he wasn't making as much at the box office as those guys were yet. I mean, he he's had obviously successful movies, but you're talking about Star Wars here. And Lucas is the one who really pushes it over because Coppola had already, you know, Cope, you gotta remember Apocalypse Now's around this time, right? Now it's a financial disaster. Almost got people killed, almost got studios shut down. But Coppola was still very influential, five Oscars at that point. So he gets Lucas. And of course, this is one of the rare instances, and perhaps the only instance, don't quote me on that, but I'm 75% confident where you see a 20th century Fox logo before the Toho logo on a Kears Album.

Ron 11:38

I have to pay more attention to that.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

And that's because George Lucas said, Look, look at all this, look at this mountain of money I am making for you. Do me this favor.

Ron 11:46

And the rest of them say no.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Well, yeah, and Fox, so Fox puts Fox puts the rest of the money in. It's a co-production. Of course, the movie goes on to be very financially successful, relatively speaking, to the budget. If you look at the budget today, it's laughable compared to like what it's like a single scene, a single episode of Game of Thrones is the whole budget of this masterpiece epic.

Ron 12:08

Yeah, I I think it was I think he was short two and a half million. I want to say that's what I heard on one of the supplements. He was just short two and a half million and they were squabbling over that amount, which today, obviously, it's like that's nothing.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

But it's like that's like a crazy amount of yen. It's like a billion yen or something.

Ron 12:22

Right. Yeah, I guess if you put it in the yen, it sounds worse. Is there is there a modern contemporary to Kurosawa? I don't know even how you compare. I don't even know how I would even begin to say this is the next Kurosawa, or this is somebody that is similar. Like he seems like one of one, and I was just having a hell of a time even trying to think of anything even close.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

So when I think about Kirisawa's career and his filmography, he's made so many different kinds of films. But if you go talk to somebody who looks at cinema maybe in the peripheries, or or they're kind of a film fan, they're not like you and I, they see Kirasawa as a sound rack film guy. And so if I look at that, even though he's made so much more in so many different pockets in pretty much every genre, not really a lot of comedies, but the um and his brand of comedy is not quite funny. If you're if you're looking at it that way, you know, I do think Scorsese becomes very comparable because Scorsese only because Scorsese is identified with the gangster film a lot of the time, only because of the filmography. I'm looking at it that way. But nobody has worked with cameras the way Kirisawa has, and I don't think they ever will ever again. If you look at Kagamushi and you watch the the battle scenes and and just the the horses, like how he shot these horses. It is incredibly difficult. They are moving very fast with real actors on them. You know, this would just be done in CGI now, you know, you would never risk it. Like you look at you're like, okay, well, Westerns, Mike, there's lots of horses, and you look at John Ford, and you're talking about three horses kind of moseying along, you know. There might be one sequence where they're they're in a chase scene. You know, you're talking about hundreds of horses being shot at on top to compose those scenes, you know, and the camera work that it takes to get that from so many different angles when you're following through those scenes. It's incredible. And I mean it's very easy to just not think about that, but I think all of his camera work from very, very small scale production kind of two-handers to large-scale epics, and they're all the camera work is just always incredible.

Ron 14:24

Kagamusha is a different kind of samurai film. When you say samurai film, you think sword fighting. This has the use of firearms, and also a lot of the violence that happens is not on screen. Even the very end, when we get to when we start walking through the movie here and we get to the final battle, you hear the you can see the guns being fired, and then when they show the thief, they show him hearing the shots being fired, but you're not seeing anyone actually being harmed by the rifles, at least not in the sense that we would expect from a large-scale battle. So Yojimbo has those those quick flashes of violence. Seven Samurai has large sequences, especially that final sequence, large sequences of violence. This is not like what Kurosawa has been known to show us. Do you see this as Kurosawa moving away from what we would, I guess American audience would consider entertainment and more towards something like I was watching this, I thought this was like a history play.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

It's important to understand that he's making it another reason, by the way, that Toho didn't want to fund this was because it was a period piece about this particular period of time in Japanese history.

Ron 15:34

There's some political, there's some political element.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yeah, there's a there's a little bit of a political element to it. And and of course, you you look at there's an element of kabuki to it. You know, kabuki theater is is is extremely important in Japanese history and culture. When I went to Japan, my wife and I went to a kabuki show, they didn't have any English translation for us, so it was it was very difficult. But but you know, there is an element to Kagamusha of like, okay, if I'm going to tell this, kabuki theater is always historical. So it's not like they're telling historical stories, they're not telling modern stories. So Kirasao, here's Kirisawa in at this point, 1970 telling a story from the feudal period in Japan's history, and perhaps he is putting forth a little bit of kabuki, and that is not going to be violent, it's going to be more suggestive, and it's going to be more character-driven. And that is what you have here. I think all of Kirasawa's work is very character-oriented, but I think more than any film in his filmography, Kagamusha really delves into the psyche, right? I mean, the whole theme of the movie of identity is tied up in, you know, well, I I think the two central characters to the theme of identity and power, and actually all the themes of the movie, you know, are obviously the Kagamusha and Schengen's son, uh, Satiori. You know, Satyori, those characters kind of really, they're the they're the yin and the yang of the story to me. Yeah, so I think he was going a little bit more, you know, in this direction, intentionally so, because his next movie would be very violent and rand.

Ron 17:06

We established this. I went in blind with this and I only really knew the basics. I I feel a personal challenge when a guest on the podcast gives me a bunch of options, and I invariably always choose the one I hadn't seen yet. Almost always. Because I like that challenge. The idea of this is that I don't know a lot, and the person I'm talking to clearly knows a ton. And just to get their perspective, so I benefited greatly from watching this a second time, and I put the audio commentary on in my second watch. Holy shit, that that was like that was like a master's class on my own sitting here. How much do you think Kagamusha benefits from repeat viewings? What other things do you pick up on?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Most films, most good films, benefit from a rewatch. Kagamusha in particular, because it has so many characters, it has so it is very hard to follow. If you can look at the basic, if you know the basic structure after a first viewing, you can then focus a little bit more on what's going on, the misal sound, the shadowing, you know, of course, is it can be quite obvious. But you know, I gotta be to be fair, the first time I watched Kagamusha, the only shadow I really recognized was the first scene shadow, like the super obvious one. But you know, if you watch this film, how he plays with shadows through the whole process is extremely important to a movie that's called Kagamusha the Shadow Warrior. Like, you know, that this is it's hard to do that when you're trying to track who is who and what is what, which way's left and which way's right, for your first viewing. So I think that's super important. Also, I think some of just the symbolism that's that's used throughout the movie is outside of the shadowing, um, like the use of color of certain colors. It is it is quite important to to also see kind of what Kirsaw was trying to say. I think like the rainbow in the end, it's it can be interpreted in many different ways, but they kind of directly interpret it for you. This is your father's saying, don't do this. Basically be peaceful um and protect your people. So, yeah, I do think if you re-watch it, you know, you can pick up on a lot more in a very deep film that has a lot going on. And and it that and that also makes it better. Like, so the second time I watched it, because it's not an action film, right? It has action, but it's a drama, and the film becomes better if you're not satisfied with the action if you're watching it for it just to be an action film. If you watch the second time, you know, and you're getting you're you're actually getting the texture of the characters and what what you're trying to be shown with some of the symbolism and and themes of it, it's a much more valuable experience. So I would say watch it two times, three times. I haven't actually watched it in probably yeah, probably at least 10 years. So rewatching it was I found new things myself.

Ron 19:49

Yeah, yeah. I'm I'm 100% on board with that because my first initial watch was Is anything going to happen? I've been watching this for an hour and a half. Is something going to happen? What keeps you engaged, I think, on your first watch is just how beautiful some of these shots are. And I have a full list whenever we get to the first one. And when I started the second watch, my wife happened to be in the room and she goes, Are they triplets? I was like, Yeah, yeah. I was like, but don't even ask. This would take me forever to explain. Because I said, I'm just kind of catching up to what the hell was going on here. I didn't recognize Nakadai at first. Even in even when I watched Ron, I was like, wait, that's Nakadai? I didn't recognize him. And then I learned he wasn't the first choice. Yes. The first choice for the thief was supposed to be Katsu Shintaro, who was Satyochi himself. Yes, yes, the blind samurai, right? And there's a QA in the booklet that comes with the Criterion release with Cursov. Someone asks him about the recasting, and he says, quote, there was an incident and he left production. Nakadai gave me what I wanted when I direct a film. I need to have actors who can follow my directions. I was like, holy shit. Like Sean's.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Goes back to what I was telling you. A little difficult. Maybe a little cratchity there, and Mr. Kersal. Yeah.

Ron 21:06

Do you know the story? I don't know what happened that he had to leave production. I just know that he left and was replaced by not gonna.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Yeah. So so what happened was he he had brought his own basically what we would call like a behind-the-scenes crew to set. I mean, because they were already in production, and uh they he brought like a behind-the-scenes crew to film himself, and he says, Because I want to use this in my acting class to show how you direct me. And Kirasawa said, Oh, hell no. That seems strange though, doesn't it? And that's not a normal practice. Absolutely, it's not normal. No, no, no way. What is that? It was it was a stretch. Also, he didn't try to get it approved beforehand, he just showed up with these guys. And Kirasawa did not take kindly to that. Um, and he fired him basically on the spot.

Ron 22:07

All right, you ready to jump into the film here and start chatting through it? This opening scene is done in one shot, it's about six minutes long, and we learn that a thief was captured and sentenced to death, but he's spared because uh this will be fun when I start pronouncing names. Takeda Nobukado, how's that? Uh, notices his uncanny resemblance to his brother, who is Shing. The warlord of the is it the Takeda clan, I believe? And rather than execute him, they decide to keep him alive as a potential political double, which will become known as the Kagamusha. This opening confused the shit out of me because again, I'm coming into I know the premise of the film, but it looks like triplets. Did you have that reaction or were you pretty much oriented to what was going on when you went into it?

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Well, I I knew that there was a double, but what you don't know already, Bukado, who's also in this scene, is Schengen's double. Yes. Currently. So, you know, so they are triplets. So that's what was confusing to me. I was like, why is there three of them? Is there two doubles? And the answer is yes, there were two doubles because basically one of them wanted to stop being the double because it was hard work. He says this constantly throughout the film, but it sucked being the double. Well, I know how hard it is, and that's why he sympathizes often with the Kagamusha throughout the film. But yes, it is very disorienting to see this. And again, it it's intentional. Actually, the first the first time I watched it, it was it was hard for me to to see who was talking because it was not a remastered version that I could see. So it was you know, it was a little much more like SD. I think I watched it on DVD, and I yeah, I believe it was like an when Netflix used to do mailers DVD that I watched this on.

Ron 23:53

And better times, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

The quality was really hard. So you could tell his mouth was moving.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

It was it was quite difficult.

Ron 24:02

There's incredible choreography of action. Kurosawa wastes no time in this idea of doubling because Shingon and Ibucado, they're mirror there's the the stroking of the mustache that they both do. There's a point where Shingon flares his sleeves out to open up his fan, and very soon after, his brother does the exact same thing with flaring his sleeves to kind of reset how he's sitting. And I've come to the case.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

And of course, of course, the Kagamusha will do that later on with the with the mistresses.

Ron 24:34

Yes, yes. And I want to talk about like, is he possessed by Shingon? Um, the beauty of all of these things is that it's all intentional. This is all already thought out by Kurosawa. I don't think this idea of you and I being confused, I'm watching it in high def. You're watching it in standard. And I don't think it's an accident that we are disoriented and a little confused at the start because everything else he does is intentional. So if the audience and someone that's seen a lot of movies is confused, it's probably something that he may be trying to lean into.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, Garisau is always going to show you exactly what he wants you to see. He's setting it all up this way, and this goes back to just his meticulous direction of his actors, his omnipresent placement of cameras. He is creating everything from start to finish. That's why he's a true master. I mean, he is souped to nuts. I mean, they said he would like sweep up dirt on the ground with the crews, you know, just because he wanted it done correctly. So go above and beyond. And I think that that you see that right away in the beginning of this film. Also, this is another reason why you repeat watch, right? Because the next time you watch it, you know what you're seeing, and it's you know, you can embrace a little bit more and see a little bit of the mastery.

Ron 25:49

Upon the second watch, I'm looking for the shadow. If you're not looking for the actual shadow behind the actors, you might miss it. But once you understand the theme and what to look for upon subsequent watches, when Shingon stands up to leave, you can see this huge shadow behind. No one else has shadows right behind them. He does when he stands to leave. It's huge.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

That one you see. I feel like that one you can see. Yeah, that one you can get. But like if you go through the rest of the movie, only certain times do you see shadows and only certain characters do you see shadows on mainly one character. But but you do see it also in the in the scene with Katsuyori when he's talking about after he takes the castle, and he's talking about how his father's shadow, even in death, continues to reign over him. You do see a shadow of him, and that's the only time you see that character's shadow.

Ron 26:42

It's it's pretty amazing. And I feel like in a lot of Kurosawa films, every it you notice something different every single time.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yes.

Ron 26:49

Now, for me, I benefit from having the audio commentary point out every little thing to me. Thank God. But this is a pretty obvious one. And I don't necessarily know what's going on historically at this time because during a siege against Tokugawa forces, Shingon is shot. There's this story that when they're his his troops are laying siege to this castle, that at night someone comes out and plays a flute. This is relayed to him, and he decides that he wants to hear this flute be played. This is the first bit of violence that is actually off-screen. We hear a shot ring out as this flute is playing and learn that Shingon has been shot. Well, there's rumors that Shingon has been shot and has been fatally wounded. We we will we will not confirm nor deny that the warlord has been fatally wounded. There's so much history going on here that's unexplained. The color and the costumes here. Thank God for color in this film, because I would have been so incredibly lost at who was who and what's going on. Am I expected to pick up which side people are on as we're going along?

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Well, you would benefit from knowing historical Japan at this time because these are all real clans, this is all real battles, this is a real thing. And what what's going on at the time in Japan is is essentially a power struggle throughout the entire country. And you have the Takeda clan who is trying to unify Japan, essentially. Bring it all together so they're in essence the good guys, however you want to look at that. You know, they're all killing each other, so who's good, who's bad. But uh, but you know, it does become really hard to pick up on this, but again, I don't think that it is that important to the story. You know, I think what's important to the story is is knowing, you know, it is about the individual, and it is is it is it's about identity again. And part of me feels like this kind of blending of all all these people because the scale is huge. So you have all of these soldiers, all of these extras, all looking very similar, very similar armor, that's just different, a different color. It almost feels like it's intentionally that way, and it is intentionally confusing by Kirasawa because what is the identity? You don't even know watching this, who whose identity is what in terms of the side of the war they're on, you know, or the battle that they're on. So and then just kind of focusing in on the Kagamusha and Schengen and what that means to you know their clan, right? Because you can always you always know who their clan is, but you don't really know or see a lot of who they're fighting against.

Ron 29:24

But before Shingon actually does pass, he orders his generals keep my death a secret for three years in order to maintain stability so they can carry out their mission as a clan. And the rival warlords they start to question why would his forces withdraw? Something's not right here, and they start to investigate. I learn shit from audio commentary all the time. We're introduced to Nobunaga, who is an opposing force, and we get to see his page, Ron Maru is the name of his page. And I learned historically that Ron Maru and Nunaga were lovers. Kurosawa knew that. Yes. Well, I learned that too. I didn't know. I didn't know that either. Kurosawa knows this, and anytime Nobunaga is in the film, Ron Maru is right next to him. Or he's or he's close, or he's nearby. So I I learned this, and now anytime Nobunaga's around, there's Ron Maru. There's a scene where Ron Maru and Nobunaga are sharing wine with someone, and they share a laugh whenever he's not.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

You mean blood sake, of course.

Ron 30:23

Oh, I'm the Europeans drink it. Yeah, right. Well, they share a laugh in that scene, and it's it's meant to show that they have this connection beyond just him being their patron.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

It's very interesting. I I I did not pick up on that. Yes, you know, the and homosexuality in in and of itself was pretty regular.

Ron 30:42

Accepted with the samurai culture, which I did not know that. That is fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Well, a lot of times they're when they're training and and then uh they're kind of in isolation with each other, there are no women.

Ron 30:52

At this time, it's we're in the I think it's 1570s, and this is something that is just widely known as and accepted in this culture. And when you think stereotypical samurai, you think masculine warrior. You don't think masculine warrior that also engage in homosexuality. That's not what comes to the forefront of your mind. But listening and learning about this film and just the history surrounding it, it was like, oh, well, that's interesting. That that was just a widely accepted way of life. No big deal. Yeah. Because we make it a big deal now, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:25

We shouldn't. We shouldn't make that such a big deal anymore. I mean, the the age gap is a little bit of a problem when I'm thinking about these characters, by the way. Also, the age, the age gap was also widely accepted in that time. So good to get away with that. I did not know that. Now I do have to re-watch it again. Thanks. Three more hours, I gotta have to watch it again.

Ron 31:44

Yeah. Looking for shadows and homosexual relationships.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Love connections. That's right. I didn't know that as part of, you know, in the historical context that from my beloved samurai course in University of Pennsylvania.

Ron 31:58

I there's a shot here that I was like, oh my god, I gotta start writing these down. I I legitimately sat up out of my chair when there's a shot of men laying on a battlefield or they're waiting to move, and above them in the frame, there's men walking in a line across it's a silhouette with the sun beaming down on them. And that was my first thought of, oh, but this is like a painting. And you come to learn later. It probably was a painting that he made. There's a list that I have here, and I'm gonna just read them off and I'm gonna put you on the spot and see if there's any others jump into your mind. So there, my my favorite shots of the film: the silhouette of the sun and the soldiers lying down, Mount Fuji in the background whenever Shingon dies, the men kneeling at Lake Suwa, whenever they are going to put Shingon's body in the lake and the cameras behind them. Yeah, love that. The shadow that remains when the thief rises and leaves when he's with the concubines, and the horses walking along the beach at the end with a rainbow. There you go. My top five of holy shit, this guy's showing off. Yeah. It's just beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Yeah, there's something about the uh when Katsuyori opens his the window in his, I guess, whatever his quarters are that he's in where with the snow, and he props it up and you see the snow.

Ron 33:11

And it's all blue, it's all muted inside, and when he pops it open, there's blue. It's you get all the blues coming in then. Yeah. There's another one. Uh now I thought of another one. Go ahead. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah. I mean that that to me, that that's that just sticks out in my mind, you know, because you're in like what feels like a very claustrophobic room, and then it opens up into the snow. And I actually think I don't think that's a painted background. I believe that is actually snowy Japan. Those are those are very striking. Um, there's a when they're in the battle sequence, um, there's a shot where they are panning to look at the enemy retreating, you know, they're and they're looking up because they're going up uphill, and uh instead of pursuing, and there's one dead soldier kind of like mounted on the landscape. So you have like the gray cliff, the stone of the cliff, the green landscape, and then just this bloody guy in red right in the center. I think that is quite poignant. And it's very small, it's almost unnoticeable because it's a very wide shot. Similarly, when they're uh crossing the water at a certain point, there's a soldier in the water and the you know the blood coming up. I do have one issue with the coloring of this film is that the blood is too red. It's like as red as my shirt instead of like real blood red. That that irks me.

Ron 34:22

I wonder if he had I wonder if he did that because that's what he was used to, to get it to show up on the black and white, maybe. It might it might be that.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

That that's a very valid point.

Ron 34:30

I at first I thought this guy's showing off, and then I thought, well, no, this is a true master of his craft, and this is something he had in his mind, and he wanted to make sure that we saw what he was picturing in his own mind. He wanted the audience to see what he was picturing. Not necessarily a guy showing off.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

But you're but you're correct in the assessment of you know, these were storyboards, you know, taken that he watercolored out. And I don't know how much of that Carasella did in the rest of his career. I mean, I don't know if he could have in the early days because he was making films very fast. You know, he was making the you know two films a year kind of thing. Do you have the time to do that? Of course, Hitchcock notoriously storyboarded everything in lieu of a script most of the time. But the the story of those storyboards does go back to that financing. And again, I'm a I'm a business of film guy, so I'm always going to bring a little bit more of the of that that to it because that's my life. Uh, when they were trying to raise the rest of the money, one of Kirasawa's producers, it's a woman, and I can't remember her name off the top of my head. She was taking these storyboards to other studios and showing it to them so she could show the vision of it.

Ron 35:36

There's not a lot known about how Shingon truly died, the real Shingon, not the Shingon in the in the film. It's very understated death. We don't actually see him get shot. We hear a shot ring out and then we learn what happened. There's very little spectacle here. And again, we've kind of touched on this already. That I'm coming from like even high and low, there's not violent action necessarily until the end, but there's tense action. I'm on the edge of my seat type of feel to it. And this is a huge moment in the story. The warlord is dead, and it just seems like there's not dead straight away. Right. Yeah, when he dies, like I don't know. That whole the whole way that we get to that point just seems like there's not a ton of fanfare.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

I think it goes back to what I was talking about with like Kabuki Theater. You know, this is the same kind of thing, you know, it's all suggestive, and and to tell you uh basically a bigger picture idea or ideal or whatever the theme is of it. And I think that's what Carousel is doing here. He doesn't need to show you any violence because the violence is not the important part. What's important is what come came from the violence. So you don't need to see it. Part of that also might be ego, right? Like, hey, I'm known for doing all this, let's do one without it and see what happens.

Ron 36:52

They have an assassin recreate how he shot Shingon, and that was cut from the US release of the film. But the whole time that he's going through this procedure, I was pretty locked in. Because I was like, what is he doing? I've never seen anything like it before. Like, what the hell is he doing?

SPEAKER_00 37:07

By the way, those rifles were definitely not that accurate back then.

Ron 37:11

I mean, it's like he goes down the tree. Yeah, that's ridiculous. But are scenes like this, are they cut solely for the sake of runtime? Or is it because it's something that it you get deeper into the the lore of the story, you get deeper into how things are done at this time in this time period. I mean, I was pretty locked in in a film where there's not a lot going on yet.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

I don't know what else that what else was cut out, but that's almost certainly Fox directly trying to get under three hours so that they can have more show times, purely.

Ron 37:46

Let's get into the corpse. The thief is brought in to replace Shingon.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

This is how I want to be buried, by the way.

Ron 37:54

Oh, I like that. Well, pick a lake. We'll put you in there. The first sight of wind, and Kurosawa is obviously known, not obviously, I would say known maybe to those that know Kurosawa. When you see wind, you know that there's high drama. Something's coming. And he uses it here to depict high drama because the thief enters. And because you know Kurosawa so well, is this something that you see right away? Is like I see it, I know something is about to something's on the horizon.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Yeah. There's you see also like a little drop in the score and like a like a little drum that you'll hear. Just one little drum pop. I love it. It becomes a great indicator.

Ron 38:32

I think if it if you know to look for it, it's like, oh my god, this is so obvious so obvious. I think Yojimbo is a good one where the you see all the dust of the of the road like blowing all over the damn place. Yeah, that kind of stuff's really cool. The thief, who's brought in to be his double, doesn't know that Shingon is dead. And he discovers the body preserved hidden in a jar, and he is completely disturbed by this. He does not want anything to do with this. Absolutely nothing to do with becoming somebody else. It's not acting as somebody else in moments of there could be danger here or whatever, trying to be in two places at once, whatever they use the decoys or the doubles for. He wants nothing to do with becoming a different person. So they actually release him. Then there's spies that are witnessing what's happening at the lake where they're going to drop this jar into the lake and they're burying Shingon. And that's another cool shot, too. So there's the rear shot where everyone's kneeling and looking out at the lake, but then there's the other one where they turn the camera back around and you can see the three spies on the right side of the screen. On the left side of the screen, the thief is hidden down there in another little section and he's listening to what they're saying. I I have a morality question here because the spies witness this body being disposed, and you know, the illusion's at risk of being they don't know what's in there, but they have a suspicion that they're putting all the pieces together. Maybe there's something a little off, and I don't know if the real Shingon's still alive. Should Shingon be ruling from beyond the grave? I mean, why should anyone submit to the idea of the leader as opposed to submitting to the leader himself?

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Well, wow, that's a loaded question. I think that the idea is because he puts it he puts a deadline on it, right? He says it's going to be three years. And he anticipates this because he has the double for a reason, right? He's always had a double. So this is a common thing with these lords to have this double. And he puts this timeline of three years on it, and it's not as though his his loyalists, the highest up in his clan, who are the most loyal, they know what's going on. So it's not really him ruling from beyond it, it's him keeping stability within a very tumultuous period of time. And this is historically accurate, like, this is not fiction. This is actually what went down. And I think that's what it is. It's more about that because and and this is important to this story so much because a big theme here is what is power and how power is handled. And if if somebody dies, if the lord dies, immediately there's a power struggle for who's going to replace him. And then it goes back to his son, who's already disgruntled with his father in general.

Ron 41:13

Well, because he's going to be past, it's going to be the grandson. He's not the heir.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Yeah.

Ron 41:17

Right. The grandson.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

His son is his son is the heir, is named the heir by Shengit. So he's already thinking, fuck this. Basically. So if his his father dies, it's just it just creates this kind of power vacuum that by its very nature, and we would actually see this play out in this film, hence the parable of this, you know, power struggle, create this vacuum that will ultimately hurt the people as a whole of the clan, of the Takaia clan.

Ron 41:46

If you presented this as, say we're going to have a debate, and you just presented it on its face as you have a leader of a group of people. Well, you can even call it, I don't want to say country, but we can say a leader of a group of people, and he has a vision. He dies before his vision is able to be carried out. Should someone pretending to be that leader carry out the vision or not? I mean, that's really at its face what you're you're debating in a way. Now you are you're talking about a little more nuance to it. There is more nuance to it. It's not as basic as as I just laid it out. But from a from a morality standpoint, I mean, eventually, when we get to a battle scene, people are going to die for this person, and it's not really him. The pages are standing in front of him as people are getting shot in this battle coming up. They're dying for the idea of the body.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Who got them into the battle, though? The Kagamusha did not get them into the battle.

Ron 42:35

That's also that's also true. See, this is why it's a fun debate.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Matsuyori knows that it's a double. So he disobeys him in a pivotal, very pivotal scene where the Kagamusha basically takes a piss on him in front of everybody. Important. And he and he goes out and and and draws everyone very selfishly into essentially doing what his father did not want to happen, pulling all his people abruptly and without the advice of the bigger, the greater whole. So, like to the question and to the debate, if if it is Schengen's vision in this in your in your example, right? This is his vision, but these people as a whole believe very much in his vision. He is a very beloved leader, right? So his vision has been adopted by his people. And he needs that's why I I go back to the three-year period. He's not asking the double to be the double for the rest of his life, despite what the Kogimush might want. It's a three-year period. And they also don't tell you how it ends the three-year period, by the way. So that is a little bit confusing.

Ron 43:36

But what happens to the thief then?

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Not a not an important detail, I guess they kill him. But uh, you know, it in that three-year period, you know, what he is doing is he is setting up that that that period of transition, you know, into you know, the next step of that who's going to take the vision over successfully, because if you cut it off abruptly, what happens is the what happens at the end of the film.

Ron 43:59

So the thief hears these enemy spies and then does a complete 180. He wanted nothing to do with this, and he's there watching this burial. He hears that the spies are just not buying what they are selling. And he does a complete one eighty. He so decides he will do this in honor of Shingan, he's going to do this. Why the change of heart for him?

SPEAKER_01 44:19

I struggle with this a little bit because the well, because we have to create this ourselves because Kirsow does not give it to us.

Ron 44:28

Yeah, he he leaves us He leaves a lot out and allows us to seemingly to make our own connections.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

I think it goes through back to the idea of identity. You're creating your own identity even for what you're watching. But to me, right, and I'll give you my interpretation, the thief has been touched by Shankan. And when he when he doesn't crucify him, right? The man is about to be crucified. I don't know what the hell he stole, but they're about to crucify this guy. Then he does what you could never do, because they'll kill you right there, to decapitate you, is he speaks out against the Lord and essentially calls him a scoundrel in the opening scene. Because he he figures the thief figures I'm dead anyway. What does it matter? I can I can use this opportunity to speak my mind. But Schengen shows mercy. And again, and I think it goes back to what I was talking about vision and the greater whole of the people of Schengen's clan adapting his vision. He's touched by this vision, the thief. So, you know, when he and he knows that his people are relying on this vision. So when he hears the spies basically go, you know, will essentially sacrifice the Takeda clan if this gets back to their boss, their lords, then his vision dies with him. So that's that's the 180 that happens for me, you know, with him. He's so touched by Shankin that he can't allow this to happen.

Ron 45:49

Before he even gets to riding a horse in front of all of his men, and the way he rides the horse and he zooms off. The spies are watching this and like, whoa, it really is him. Of course, he gets thrown off the horse here very shortly. But it seems like he embodies Shingon immediately. And they're going to train him on how to act like him and the mannerisms and such. But it seems like he's I said I have in my notes. Stop me if this is way too philosophical. But it's like Shingon has possessed him from beyond the grave immediately because he has already convinced all these people, his troops, people that are supposed to be finding out the truth. He's convinced them just with his mannerisms on a horse right away without any type of training.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

I think it's just a little bit of him, right? Because and and that I actually am with you here. And and it's just the beginning of the spirit coming of Schengen Spirit coming into him, his identity being transitioned to thief at this point, but only a little bit of it because then he falls off the horse. And and there's a scene later, like if if we're going to talk about the dream sequence, then I'll talk a little more about when it actually, to me, comes fully together.

Ron 46:56

Well, perfect. Because back with the Takeda clan, the thief now is studying Shingon's gestures, behaviors, just the presence of the man he's learning from his brother. And he begins to pretty convincingly inhabit the role, and even to the surprise of those close to him that are in on his true identity, it's that you could there's little side conversations where it's like, oh damn, yeah, he really is. He's him. He's doing it. And he's he's earning trust of those around him in the process. And one of those people that he's earning trust from is his grandson. But his grandson immediately says, uh Takemaru, I believe is his is that that's the grandson's name. He recognizes that's not my grandfather. What do you make of how everyone else is fooled, at the exception of a child?

SPEAKER_01 47:36

That's not the only person who's not fooled. The horse. Well, no, no, no, but that's that's the point, right? Like, so so the the the the most the most underdeveloped minds, because you have a young child and an animal, are the two that recognize, you know, the most okay, in my my mind, they don't they can't, they don't they're not developed enough. An animal would never be able to recognize the spirit, and the kid doesn't get it yet. And actually, I I think the grandson is enough, he he would probably be the third most crucial character for me. That might sound crazy, but you know, that plot line from there they go on to develop this this relationship where I I think the thief has graduated Schengen's spirit, right? He's taken it on and made him better. The next line that he says, that the young boy says after he says it's not him, he says, say, say why? And he says, because you're too nice or you're nicer, whatever he says. So what you're what Keras was telling us is that Schengen was a very strict, as you would expect, from a warlord grandfather who was named you the heir, was probably very strict and militant with him and probably getting him into training. Whereas the thief's relationship, as we see this develop with the grandson, you know, he has this very loving, playful relationship that is much different, and I would say more elevated to what Shangin was or his father, or God forbid his father. I mean, you don't I don't even think you see, I'm not sure there's one frame where the child's father is in it with him.

Ron 49:06

He's never I think I can't think of one.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

So what Gears out to me is showing is as like this this fragmentation of like the bloodline, right, is different than the the Kagamusha, and his spirit is closer to his own blood than the family. What is identity? Goes back to what is your identity? Is your identity defined by your bloodline? Doesn't have to be.

Ron 49:28

The yeah, see, these are all questions that uh film raises that if you take it at face value for just I'm here for the entertainment and the action, you miss out on all of these moral arguments, moral debates, philosophical type of questions.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

Sure.

Ron 49:43

When he's learning how to be, he's getting the lay of the land a bit. And it it actually did let out a little chuckle whenever he's being shown these hidden compartments. You're in this room and all of a sudden they open up this hidden compartment, and there's dudes just staring straight ahead at a wall, apparently. There's an And they're always sitting there, they're always on the Yeah, they're sitting there, they're just staring straight ahead. It's like these poor guys. But then there's the leisure room, and he says, This is the room of leisure, and who's in the room of leisure? Two young male pages, and we talked about this and homosexuality among samurai and others in pre-modern Japan except being accepted. It was an expectation that pages would provide sexual favors to who they were serving. It struck me at this point of the film that way too many people know about the thief's true identity. It seems like the circle is widening. Is this a testament to the loyalty to the clan that everyone just goes along with it? There's so many people that know about this now.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Not really. I mean, who knows about it are the the no vassals know about it, right? And the people, so like the three security dudes in the wall, like they like security guys staring at a wall. I mean, like they live in a wall, man. Like how loyal are these guys? They live in a wall on their knees. Like that, you know, they they uh it goes back to kind of the the Japanese culture period of the class system at that time. What you're looking at, and who knows, are the top levels. You have to understand this clan is a is a huge clan. Think of it like a city, it is a gigantic clan of people. We only see the high-level military bosses and then the military. We don't even see the common people until the very end when they're kicking them out. You see a few of them. This there, it seems like there's a lot of people, but it's basically only in the quote palace, which isn't even a palace, it's just their their kind of headquarters where they're all set up, and then the vassals within there are the workers there. Usually you want to keep your head uh, because that's what would happen to them if they didn't, if they did anything, you would be decapitated. So and loyalty is, I mean, you know, you know the idea of seppuku, right? I mean, this is this is for dishonor. You're expected to kill yourself. This is a common thing in that town period.

Ron 51:54

It made me think of uh what's the phrase, two people could keep a secret as long as one of them is dead. And then this scene happens and it's like, oh, the pages know, the guards know.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Yeah.

Ron 52:04

The larger circle of the higher ups in the military, whatever. We get an introduction to the horse. There's a line here that is meant, I think, to me at first it was comedic, until I watched it a second time and I thought, oh no, that's just Kurosawa foreshadowing ahead of what is going to be the downfall. Because they say he he needs to refrain from mounting the horse. And someone says he must refrain from mounting his mistresses too.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

That is kind of funny.

Ron 52:27

Which is like, haha, that's funny, that's a good line. But then later at the end of the film, it's the mistresses that realize that he doesn't have the wound that he should have. So he's thrown off the horse, and then they notice that he is not wounded, he doesn't have scars that he should have, so he must not be the real Shingen. The scene with the thief and the concubines, among many other things, I think shows off Kurosawa's genius again. You are watching this with a blindfold on if you don't see the giant shadow as he gets up to leave the room in this scene. And it just feels like Shingon is present in some way at all times. And I think the way he does that is the shadows, number one. Obviously, this is all that the thief hears about and talks about. This is all that he's spoken to about, which is basically this is not the way that he would act. He acts this way, he does this, he does that. It just feels like he's always present, he's always around, not just in people's minds, but even in the shadows. Physically there almost creepy.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Yeah, it's great. I mean, it it's it's it is direct symbolism. And it can actually be a little bit on the nose, like you're saying, some points. But when you re-watch it several times, you'll find also so many other little nuanced pieces that that connect this and like the dream sequence. So I'll wait till you ask me about the dream sequence.

Ron 53:37

Yeah, I'm ready. I'm gonna get there because it's coming up here very shortly. But first, there is the council test. So they're they're essentially saying to Shingon, look, we need to have this meeting with the council. You are to say nothing, you're to agree with us and then get up and get out of the room. The less you say, the better. The less time you're there, the better. We need to keep this illusion up. Do not say anything. And Shingon's son, Katsuyori, he's incredibly frustrated and he challenges the Kagamusha in this meeting. And he responds in a way that is convincing and reinforces this illusion in front of everybody. It's it's reinforcing in front of the people that need to be convinced. This is the moment of the film where it's as if he has now fully embodied Shingon. Because it's not just they they have a the council has a meeting, or I don't know what to call them. Not really the council, it's like the I don't know what to call them.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

His his I don't know what the proper term would be.

Ron 54:32

I don't know what the term is.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

I want to go for the board. Council sounds better, so we'll stick with that.

Ron 54:38

Yeah. If there were seven of them, we could call them the seven samurai. They do have a meeting and they're almost laughing about how I can't believe how easily he did that, or I can't believe that he convinced everybody it was perfect. Where is the power here? Is it bloodline or a performance? Because if it's bloodline, the wrong man is in charge. If it's performance, I mean he's performing as if he is Shingan. He's not he's this. I'm going back to that original debate I brought up before. It's like, where should the po where should the power be?

SPEAKER_01 55:09

Well, but the power is not with his son anyway. There's and and we don't get the backstory as to why he's skipped over, but he was skipped over by Shangin for a reason. And it seems like because he's petulant, like what we get from that character is petulance. We don't get the story of why he's been skipped over, but we do get him be petulant from the first time we see him, all the way through till he's leading the entire clan to their deaths, the entire military.

Ron 55:36

Which is which is common. And yeah, it's not just petulance, it's also he's quick to act. He's reactionary, obviously. Because when he's upset about this, he gets out of there, and then he does something stupid, which causes the deaths of many people.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

He feels he feels like he is not respected. Um, and at this this scene, he's finally taken because he knows that it's a double. He knows his father's dead at that point. So he's saying he's going to challenge essentially the what we're calling the council, who are trying to keep the vision, keep the vision going. So he's saying, I'm gonna challenge it because I know you don't want him saying much. And I'm gonna blow this up because you can't have my son be the leader because he's a child, so it will force the hand into being me. So because they don't have time for the replacement, whatever it may be, you know, kind of force that in there. So he that's what he's trying to expose. But instead, what he exposes is the almost full, I would argue almost full transition because I I think the dream sequence is important. The almost full transition from the thief to Shangan, fully embodying his spirit, and basically taking a piss on him, like clearly his father had for many years before that, and skipped over him and giving the Kagamusha ultimately more power in his in doing this, which only leads to him being more frustrated, I'm sure.

Ron 56:49

If this was made today, we would get a and it was successful, we would get a thief prequel. Like, how the hell was he able to do this? What was he before he was the like what what led him to be the thief? We would get something like that, probably. Here's another question. What's his name? Does he have a name? No, he's the thief. He's just the thief, right? Yeah, he's just the thief. I was like, wait, is this a true question? I don't think he has a name, does he? Yeah. And the plot doesn't matter. So you you mentioned this earlier, and upon my first watch, at this point is where I started thinking it is does anything really matter? Like, what matters is power and keeping people together for to carry out a dying man's vision and wish. That's what this is about. Knowing the history is obviously helpful. If Kuris Always wanted to make a historically accurate picture, he probably wouldn't have chosen this because we don't even know how Shingon actually died. And he probably would have laid things out in a way for us to fully interpret and understand. I think you and I are on the same page here over like that's not really what he's doing, that's not the message he's trying to share.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

You could just go read a textbook and find out what happened for the most part. And that's what Carousel is doing, right? He's like, you don't need this. He's like, what I'm trying to show you. What's important about this story is the idea of the Kagamusha. That's why it's called Kagamusha. It's named after this character. That's why this character doesn't have a name before he is the Kagamusha, because that's what he is. He doesn't have this identity, he's becoming this. And this is the story of identity. It's a story, perhaps you want to look at it as a story of family and bloodlines and how that works on who your real family is, blood versus you know, your people.

Ron 58:26

Well, we've hit your dream sequence because I mean I'm so anxious for this because I have a lot of difficulty understanding the abstract and what do certain because there are some abstract visuals here. There's a clear influence of the painting that Kurosawa has drawn. It was almost like, okay, I have this idea and it's in my mind. I'm gonna paint it, and then it's gonna be the most colorful part of this film. So in this dream sequence, I don't even know what to ask beyond what does this represent, and just leave it open for you.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

Looking at the dream sequences is so to me, again, if this is direct, the most direct symbolism there is in the film of Schengen's spirit being fully merged with thieves, and them creating this new identity of who it is. Because it is a new identity, it's not Schengen's identity, it's not the thief's identity anymore. It's this new one that they formed together, the two of them the humanity of the thief, and the this new humanity that he's found through Schengen's spirit, and the you know, the him bringing that to the power and the authority that Schengen has and how that how that is influencing everything around him. What we see visually is okay, so you have Schengen's dead body kind of zombified, a little wet, like he maybe came from the sea. Could have used a little seaweed on him, do a full zombie, but they didn't. And uh basically coming towards the thief into what we assume is a backdrop, sky backdrop, but into water at their feet. There's water coming through, flowing in at their feet. We see him approaching him. We see uh we see the thief trying to get away. Then it's just cut to images of feet and water. Feet, feet, feet, water, water, water, two feet. Okay, then there's maybe four feet. It's just shot, shot, shot. Are the feet the same? This is the merging of the two. We don't know whose feet these are. We're not seeing where the rest are. We saw that there are these two men, one dead, one alive, and they're being washed, their feet are being washed and pulled in by this water to pull them together. Then he wakes up, and the backdrop is a tidal wave behind him. On the as if these two men just came together, the spirit and the living man came together in this dream sequence. Their spirits and essence were brought together in this water, pulled in by the water, and then the very next shot is him waking up, and directly behind the thief is a stereotypical Japanese wave, water, not even a watercolor, it's like a sketch kind of thing on the paper wall behind him. As if the tide spit him out as one. That's what I took.

Ron 1:01:01

Damn, man. I could have used you sitting next to me right over here when I was watching it. Because I paused it and I was like, oh, this is important. Someone help help me understand.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

It is a little like Diego Vertov, though, when you start getting the the feet shot. It's just kind of like feet walking around and splashing in there at different angles and things like that. So, like that, yeah, that I I believe that's what it's going for. There's also part of me that says, Kirstow really wanted to watercolor paint a backdrop, and this was the one chance you could do a big ass backdrop, water paint it.

Ron 1:01:33

There are some there are some movies, and I've seen this, people interview and talk to directors and say, Is this what you're going for? And then they give the most basic answer. We we analyze something to a point, and then they say, I actually just thought this would be looked cool or something like that. I doubt that was what Kurosal was going for. He's probably going for exactly what you just described. The violence that we see next is in a battle scene, but it's really it's at night, and there's not a lot of violence shown. You see, you hear shots ringing out and then men falling down. It's not a bloody violent scene. There are no swords. There's the scene where they're trying to scale up these castle walls, and that's probably the second most violent part of the film, is supposed to be a large-scale battle where Singen is told don't move. I don't know what the battle strategy is here for something like this in Japanese battles, but he's told not to move. Yeah, you you can't die. That's why. They gotta keep him safe. Basically, people are are lined up surrounding him.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:30

Yeah, taking human shields, basically.

Ron 1:02:32

They're using human shields. And we we already discussed this, we don't have to go down this road again. But I did have the thought again of these people are standing in front of him dying, but you know, in about 40 minutes, they're throwing rocks at him, telling him to get the hell out of here. They're they're standing in front of this man taking bullets and dying for him, and then here coming whatever it is, time time-wise. I know movie time-wise is way different than the actual time-wise, but they're they're throwing him out. That's that's fascinating. I don't know why that's fascinating to me. It's just something that that stuck with me after the fact.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:01

Yeah, I mean it's it's just that is a nutshell of the Japanese, the period of Japan of which you're in. It's actually shocking that they didn't kill him. Of course, they can't kill him because you need the end. That end scene.

Ron 1:03:18

It's extremely important. Well, the illusion breaks. So we've had he's he's finally, as you're saying, become one. Shingon from Beyond the Grave and the Thief have become one. And he was a little over his skis here because I think he was feeling as if he was really embodying this man and decides that he is going to attempt to ride Shingon's horse.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:39

And you thought he was gonna ride it the first time, too, didn't you? You were like, he's got it.

Ron 1:03:43

Yeah, yeah, of course I did. Because I don't know where we're going here. I should have known better. And with he's thrown off the horse, and without the warlord's battle scars, his identity is exposed. And there's actually a his brother, Nabakado, says the mountain has moved. Wait, does he say that or did I have that in my brain?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:00

No, he did say it.

Ron 1:04:02

Okay. I was like, oh, that's pretty good if I came up with that myself. Uh, not as good as Varritor's Curosa. The mountain has moved, and he is immediately cast out and replaced. This is brutal for those is this is a brutal scene for me to watch. Because the thief didn't do what he did for himself. He did it for noble reasons. He had a care for the clan. When he did that 180 and came around to it, he did it for noble reasons. He didn't do it because he wanted to be in power, because really he didn't he wasn't really holding the power. In fact, he didn't want that. He didn't want it. That the council's calling the shots here. He's not the person in charge. I mean, he truly is a figurehead.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

Well, but even in the beginning, though, he didn't really even want that, right? Like he didn't want to do this.

Ron 1:04:42

He didn't want to be well, yeah. No, he made that abundantly clear. What does this say about how the clan actually views him? Does this show an inhumanity of class structure? I I I wanted to dig into this a little bit with you because they were just worshiping him until they realized, well, you're not who we thought you were. Get the hell out of here. You're you're a dog to us.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:00

Yeah, well, well, I think I I think it all boils back to class structure. The vassals on this, we were the the lowest people on the the the commoner. Non-mil, they're not they're not a soldier, they're certainly not a lord, they're just the commoner. They fall in line in this culture, right? And you fall in line with what's going to protect you and what it's going to be, and what's going to be the best for you and your your people and your in your life moving forward. At that point, they are forced to act this way in a sense, because otherwise, Schengen's son is not going to be so happy. They know now. So that you're not going to just prop up this thief. And at that, at that point, you can't, you know, as that because that's that is not honorable. And they would have to basically idolize him at this point. So they have to fall in line. So it's less of the people who actually come to him and kick him out because that is their position. They have no choice. Where this where I do take issue with this, where the fuck is the council? The guys who are putting him up this whole time. They just they're ghosts at this point. They, you know, and I mean, like, what was it's like, what was the plan after the three years? Was it always gonna go down like that? Nobu Kadu has sympathized with him all throughout the way because he was the double and at a certain point. So he knows and he feels something for this man, but that's gone. There's no there's no sympathy, there's no nothing. He is just cast away. Now, again, I don't know that that's that important to get that deep. Into it because what Kirasawa is doing is you know, he's telling a parable in a broad stroke, and ultimately the full come circle is the last scene. You know, and you can't have that if the people were just like, oh, you know, it's okay. Come on in, you could just be a vassal here now.

Ron 1:06:45

The we are hurtling toward the end here because we see the fall of the Takeda clan, because the decision by Katsuyori is to lead them into battle against the See again. I have this written down, but I'm not sure it matters. I literally have it written down against the Oda forces at Nagashino. Like, whatever. Against guys that aren't on their side. This was a true battle that did last. The true battle lasted over eight hours. In this, we see the destruction of the Takeda clan. I wrote on my last watch that he sends his forces in three different charges. And this is the beauty of the use of color for Kurosawa because of the flags that they have have a specific name. Forgive me, I don't know what the specific name is. But they say he sends in the cavalry, which would be the wind, then he sends in the forest, and then he sends in the fire. He sends them, he sends all three. So he they they all in terms of the film itself, the real battle lasted so long it didn't go, it didn't go down this way. But he sends the cavalry in and they're all shot down. Interesting thing too here. Mowed down fast. Yeah, it it sounds like machine gun fire is what it sounds like. It feels like a poor strategy, and I don't know if this was to show Katsuyori's hubris or he panicked, or he's an inept type of leader to send these forces in one after the other just to get completely mowed down and destroyed.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:06

I think it's all of that, all of those things. Because this again, this is the back to my two most pivotal characters. They're both going to show something in this scene. They're going to show, reveal their identity in this end scene, both of them. So you have the new warlord of the Takeda clan who just sacrificed who's got finally got his power that he wanted, that his father did not want him to have, that he's he was going to be passed over for his son. He's he's fought for it, he has disobeyed for it, he's basically done anything he could to get it, and once he gets it, he sacrifices everyone. And he has has to show the power, he has to wield it because he finally has it. He is not going to be told no anymore because he cannot be told no. There's no one to tell him no. He takes he does not need to heed any advice, he doesn't heed the advice of his elder counsel that you know now are below him, but they're advisors. That's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to give you that advice. He does not heed that advice. He to he goes in and sacrifices everyone. And Kirasau is showing us this man was so hungry for power that he was willing to sacrifice everyone for it, and to show it. He would still have had the power if he just retreated and go fight another day. You're still the lord, you're still the most powerful there. But he doesn't do that. He goes and he shows I finally have my power and how to be treated. So it's like this again, it's the fragility of ego and what is what is power and how is it handled and and and what is your identity? And his turns out his identity is well, dumbass one, but two is you know, it's it it's ultimately it's it's ultimately one that is not aligned with with his father's vision.

Ron 1:09:52

Can you talk about the thief's identity then? Sure. Because we're showing a little bit of opposites, because his last act is to sprint onto the battlefield in the aftermath, and he's attempting to reclaim the clan's banner to end the film.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

So you have this man, this no-named thief who tasted the power, but then was banished out, you know, completely, cast away, cast aside, but still had this spirit within him, and his his this new identity did not go away from him. He came to Schengen's funeral before that, right? He wanted to be there because it's part of it. Part of him is kind of dying. And also, if you look at uh the actor's makeup, they're paling him, kind of almost like he is dead already. His spirit is died because now Schengen is finally put to rest in that funeral scene. So the thief therefore is losing himself a bit. And and you Kirsaw gives him this this almost it's almost a little bit like caricature-esque. It is very kabuki, actually. The really powder white makeup. Anyway, he's so his his spirit is still there, but it's dying. So he wants to do he is an honorable man now. He's no longer the thief. He is, you know, Kagamusha. And he needs to go and he needs to make sure that that banner cannot be underwater, even if I'm dying. So he takes a bunch of shots before he gets to that banner to raise it. And his last effort is going to be the most honorable thing to do, which is bring that banner and to bring raise it one more time before it's completely. Put a downer. I actually think it's inspiring, right? I mean, you have this petty thief, but like the yeah, the character the character who just massacred leads his people to massacre is is interesting. We never see him die, but we assume he did.

Ron 1:11:34

Are you ready to uh sum it up for us? We close every episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:45

Kagamusha deserves its place for a plethora of reasons, but let me talk about the most important to me, why I think it's important. Themes that are that are used in this film are relevant at any time to anyone in life. These are these are themes that are relevant right now in 2026. The theme of identity. Is our identity predetermined and tied to our blood or family? Or is it something we can create and something that we can project and something that could be better when we do that? The character of Kagamusha has an identity that we are never really shown. No, we don't know his name, we don't know what he has done, what he's stolen. It's even referenced, oh, maybe he murdered someone, even, but he's about to be crucified. That's all that we know. When he becomes the double for Shangan, he starts to assume his identity and become this new person. He eventually becomes a better person with that identity. And it raises the question of like, what can we create? What can we project? Even if it's a falsity, what is real and what is not real doesn't really matter in terms of how things are going, you know, in this story. And and that's something that I think is really relevant in today's society when we look at things like social media and how people can live a false identity and everything's so rosy in social media. I think it's extremely relevant to look at this theme of how we project ourselves and how can we do that for the positive? Because you have two characters in this film, the thief and and the and Katsuyori, who are two very different individuals who have two very different identities, but they're in the same line directly from Schengen, in terms of what they're given. And they choose to go two very different paths: one that is directly related to the blood, and one that is manufactured and was was not real until it was real and became real. So I think that really relates to society now, and and you know, this theme is is is extremely relevant at any point in time. Um, and also the theme of power, more specifically, how we hunger for power and what that power means, how one wields power and how fickle it can be. This movie really illustrates that, in particular with Katsuyori's character. I I just think that you look at the hunger he has for power, you know, that's not given to him the want the one, and when he finally gets it, it leads to the demise. And so I, you know, I think these these themes of identity, of reality versus perception, of uh of power, you know, they're always relatable, and someone could get that and and take something from this movie. The other part of it is that's important to me and should be important to anyone making movies, is how this thing got made. This movie is important to film history because it got made in a way that did not really exist before that. Well, I mean, of course, people raise money and fund money, but this was a 60, almost 70-year-old master filmmaker who the only way his film got made that he needed, that he wanted to make for five years, tried to get the financing for, was because two young filmmakers who were inspired by his work and happened to have a lot of power in a different country were able to get that financing in place for him and move it across the line and let him see his creative vision unfiltered. This was a creative vision that no one no one wanted to change, except for maybe the studio, but they didn't get that right anymore. And lastly, because every Kiris Tao movie should be in the Criterion Collection, and in fact they are. He's the greatest.

Ron 1:15:15

Thank you again to Mike Rux for taking the time to speak with me about Kagemucha. If you'd like to support the show for as little as$3 a month, you can do so by selecting the support the show link in the episode description. You can follow the podcast on Instagram for updates and subscribe on YouTube for full video versions of each episode. Links also in the description below. Next time I'll be joined by James Merritt to discuss the third man. Thanks again for listening. Please be sure to follow, share, and keep an eye out.