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Kagemusha: Or How I Fell In Love With Sengoku Japan The backdrop of the story is Sengoku Japan where the daimyos of great clans vie with one other for supremacy. The ultimate goal is to become shogun to replace the now powerless Ashikaga of Kyoto. At the center of the tale is Shingen, lord of the Takeda clan, a warlord of surpassing skill, who strikes fear in the hearts of his enemies and inspires bravery and undying loyalty in his own men. Shingen is at the apex of his power, his armies threaten to crush Tokugawa Ieyasu the chief ally of his implacable foe, Oda Nubunaga. However, in an irony of fate, Shingen is mortally wounded. Shingen, along with his chief retainers are well aware that his death not only signals an end to his aspirations to crush the Tokugawa and Oda clans and to declare a Takeda shogunate, but also that it might, in fact, lead to the destruction of the Takeda clan under the leadership of his intemperate son, Katsuyori. So, a plan is devised to use a kagemusha (shadow warrior) to keep the enemies of the Takeda in check for three years (the significance of the period in question is never explained). The film is a visual masterpiece, Kurosawa has an equally good eye for epic as well as ordinary moments. Human bonds (and, perhaps, bondage) are at the heart of the story. A petty thief is torn and hollowed by having to assume the outward persona of a larger than life figure. In time his misery is comforted by the love of a child and, for a moment, he forgets... The destruction of the Takeda army at Nagashino is the predictable result of the revelation of Shingen's death. The kagemusha now half man, half ghost, watches in horror as warriors and horses are cut down; he watches their death throes and his remaining hold on a sense of self is finally lost in that danse macabre. Kurosawa's choice of putting real historical figures in a stylized and mythical tale is somewhat problematical. It creates a number of creative constraints, while, nevertheless, taking liberties with the historical record. Regardless, it is a great movie, one that, in a number of ways, anticipates Kurosawa's final triumph, the sublime Ran.