Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha (The Shadow Warrior) was previously released by Criterion on DVD, but the added color depth and clarity in high-motion scenes offered by the Blu-ray released on 18 August are what truly make it a must-own for any serious collector or fan of Kurosawa. Beyond that, the included booklet is nice and thick, full of reproductions of Kurosawa's hand-painted storyboards for the film. I've taken the best photos I can with my point & shoot to give you a taste.
Criterion had planned for their first Kurosawa Blu-ray to be Ran, but rights issues with The Weinstein Company prevented it. What may initially be viewed as disappointing news is a blessing in disguise for one of Kurosawa's masterpieces that gets less attention than it deserves.
When an ailing lord dies, a lookalike peasant thief is recruited to carry on in the warrior's place. As time passes, the "shadow warrior" struggles with his growing ambitions and the intimidating legacy he has to uphold. Kurosawa's return to samurai films is perhaps one of the best examples of his tremendous talent for choosing color palette. Kagemusha is more than just an epic from one of the most dense and complex times in Japanese history (that of the Warring States), it's a powerful fable on the perception and use of power. If HBO really wants to make me happy, they'll do a megaseries set in this time period. Better yet, I hope the Japanese film industry puts one together on their own terms and then sells it to HBO.
The picture is the closest I've seen to a film print on my television, with what I'm deeming a "Whole Grain" level of detail. I'm not a fan of Digital Noise Reduction and never have been. This transfer is clean, raw, and vivid. The audio is clear, with consistent audio levels throughout and lacking any discernible hiss. None of this should surprise anyone who has seen a Criterion Blu-ray transfer first-hand.
After looking at this disc, rumors of a 25-film Kurosawa box set due out later this year have me looking forward to the end of 2009 with bated breath. The extras are carried over from the previous release, but all video is now in HD.
Feature Commentary with author Stephen Prince
Prince wrote a book called The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa, and his commentary is very academic but thoroughly informative. The most interesting thing about it to me was the depth he went into regarding the intentionally alluded homosexual content of the film. It was completely historically accurate, but it's been largely glossed over during the last 30 years. I can only imagine what Troy would have been like if they had included the true depth of the relationship between Achilles and his "page" Patroclus.
Lucas, Coppola, and Kurosawa [HD 19:21]
George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola talk about their early admiration of Kurosawa and how film school was the only option before the age of video when it came to seeing interesting foreign films.
Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create [HD 41:01]
is an 8 chapter vintage documentary fromt he Toho Masterworks series, featuring interviews with the actors who played Shingen, Ieyasu, and Nobunaga in addition to a variety of crew and staff. They tell the story of the genesis of the movie, from all the Japanese studios rejecting the script to Coppola and Lucas coming on board to a major casting change mid-stream to the stunning battle sequence that caps the film.
Image: Kurosawa's Continuity [HD 43:44]
Actor Masayuki Yui, who played Tokugawa Ieyasu in the movie, reconstructed Kurosawa's original vision for Kagemusha by setting the hand-painted storyboards to dialogue and scoring from the final film with the director's endorsement of the end product.
A Vision Realized
25 frames of Kurosawa's original hand-drawn and painted storyboards are juxtaposed with the actual shots from the final film.
Suntory Whiskey Commercials [~5:00]
Kurosawa made commercials for the Suntory company's whiskey to pay the bills before and during the making of Kagemusha.
Trailers: Japanese Teaser, Japanese Trailer, & U.S. Trailer
I love that the Japanese Teaser [3:21] is completely dark and serious until the fourth wall is broken in its closing seconds. The Japanese Trailer [3:28] focuses more on dialogue and spends some time promoting the Coppola/Lucas endorsement. The U.S. Trailer [1:23] is radically different in every way possible.