Kagemusha
Kagemusha (影武者, Shadow Warrior) is a 1980 epic jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is set in the Sengoku period of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class criminal who is taught to impersonate the dying daimyō Takeda Shingen to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable clan. Kagemusha is the Japanese term for a political decoy, literally meaning "shadow warrior". The film ends with the climactic 1575 Battle of Nagashino.
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| Directed by | Akira Kurosawa |
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| Starring | Tatsuya Nakadai |
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| Edited by | Akira Kurosawa (uncredited) |
| Music by | Shin'ichirō Ikebe |
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Running time | 180 minutes |
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| Language | Japanese |
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| Box office | $33 million (est.) |
The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival (tied with All That Jazz). It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and received other honours. In 2009 the film was voted at No. 59 on the list of The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.