Some movies are made to be lived ... this is one of them. A feast for the eyes, sufficient to be transported in another world.

I have this on the great Criterion original dvd, and decided that the Blu-Ray version would be worth the upgrade. This was a BIG mistake. The film is five stars, and the transfer is one. Sorry Criterion, but you have really screwed up on this one (as you also did on the terrible transfer for The Last Emperor). I am a huge fan of Criterion releases, but this was appalling. The film was as blurry as my original dvd from a few years ago. I tried both to compare, and trust me, there is hardly anything to choose between them. My wife who does not care too much for all the superb definition that Blu-Ray can provide, was just as shocked as I was when the film started. I have a 58 in Panasonic Plasma, with Panasonic player, and I was just so let down by this. I will sell this and keep my original dvd. What a shame!

Like two other DVDs I bought at the same time, I couldn't play this at all. NEVER AGAIN will I buy DVDs from Amazon.

Kagemusha tells the story of a criminal who impersonates Takeda Shingen after Shingen's death so that rival warlords Nobunaga, Tokugawa, and Toyotomi won't know the Takeda clan has lost its head. The criminal does a fine job as the "shadow warrior" and eventually wins the hearts of Shingen's family, but hubris leads him astray, he is found out, and cast back into the world of peasantry. In the end, the Takeda clan is defeated by Nobunaga.

Kagemusha is a film beautiful in parts but unsuccessful as a whole. The sets and filmography are stunning and rich. And the very long film can be watched easily because each scene is enchanting on its own merits. However, as a single story, the film does not quite work. One theme that characters reflect on several times is the challenge of continuously impersonating another person. However, the film never explores this problem through the protagonist's experiences. There is also the problem of the Battle of Nagashino, which takes up the last part of the film, but doesn't seem to have any relevance to the film per se, rather just the historical background. Unlike RAN, which focuses on war and conflict, prolonged sequences here showing dead and dying soldiers in the aftermath of battle seem out of place.

My impression of Kagemusha is that Kurosawa had several pieces of visual imagery that he wanted to put on film (the dream sequence, the battlefield...), and he also wanted to tell the story of the shadow warrior as some sort of autobiography. These got mashed up into one story with the consequent lack of complete success. I suspect Kurosawa chose Shingen because of imagery of Shingen sitting solemnly, directing his troops, rather like a film director sitting behind a camera. Kurosawa was a depressive, and I would bet that at times he felt his directing was somehow fraudulent like the shadow warrior pretending to direct Shingen's troops.

All Kurosawa films are magical, but Kagemusha leaves one slightly disappointed and vaguely confused. Recommended for Kurosawa fans.

No matter how I set my screen or set up the player it's impossible to see the subtitles completely. Not worth the expense in BluRay either. Get the DVD and save some money.