A splendid martyrdom of oriental classical style

Xzavier 2022-01-09 08:01:49

Ozu Yasujiro looked upright and calm. The daily atmosphere is still and the water flows deep, so it can give out the taste of tea and rice.
Kurosawa is also quiet, but he just doesn't like to let the characters talk too much, but he keeps moving. Kurosawa put people in the world he painted, watching people conflict and struggle. Flowing, changing, bumping, fleeing, hurried, sad, joyful, and then bursting out some brilliant sparks.


"Chaos" is from King Lear, and "Spider's Nest" is from "Macbeth". The names of the princes in these two stories are all overhead. "Shadow Warrior" is a very oriental story. The dream of Shingen Shangluo, the seizure of power by the victory over Lai, and the battle of Changxiao are roughly in the historical framework. On the restoration and texture of history, it is above "Chaos" and "Spider's Nest City".



The prologue is silent, quiet, slow, and small. The light is like a bean, and the shadows are brilliant. Xinxuan, substitute Xinlian, and shadow warrior, there is only darkness left. Light and darkness are the materials that make shadows.
The shadow warrior was dormant, giggling, listening to Xin Xuan and Xin Lian talking about him, then suddenly broke out, accused Xin Xuan, and was dumbfounded. This series of actions is both rhythmic and sudden.

After the slow, silent prologue that seemed to be a black and white atmosphere, the speed started to accelerate.
Kurosawa hopes that the world can see what he imagined, and "Dream" reaches its limit at this point. In "Shadow Warrior", there are many paintings that he obviously wants to leave: the soldiers sleeping under Lengyue with their guns, looking up at the castle tower and the night sky afterwards, the reckless foot soldiers, and the red-colored Takeda cavalry. , And Kagemusha and Ieyasu chasing each other in their dreams-the scroll of the colorful clouds has a lot of meaning of "Dream". Japanese movies are "movies," and Kurosawa can explain this.

Because he is busy "screening", there are not many words and his actions are concise and powerful. But because of the few movements, the desire for Kyoto that suddenly erupted when Shingen was still alive, and the gesture that Shinren persuaded the Kagemusha was full of expressiveness in silence. The most wonderful person is that when the Kagemusi first took office, the younger surnames of the Takeda family were respectful of his predecessors and sorrows-when the Kagemusi laughed freely, there was no posture of the lord; but when he took up the posture of Xinxuan, the lord's soul returned.
The progress of the movie is from the dead and static (the dark and small panorama in the first six minutes) to the gorgeous dynamic. In the middle and late stages, the long shots of the running, the cry of the running of the army, and the sound of the wind on the location continue to give people a sense of speed. Finally advancing to the end, the flag of Fenglin Volcano, the vast and boundless army formation, the red assault, the three-stage attack of iron cannon, the huge noise, the gorgeous color, the wailing of the war horse, the blood and the blood, the loud noise, the big movement, and high speed. The rhythm of the movie took off at this time, and then fell.




On the subject of Kagemusha, Takayoshi Ichiro and Hara Tetsuo collaborated in the manga "Kagemusha Ieyasu Tokugawa". In terms of plot, that version is even more bold: Guan Yuan, a rain determines the world, the assassin kills Ieyasu, and the shadow warrior sits calmly. But the scene selected in "Kagemusha" has a more long-term meaning. In other words, it was simply for the ending Chang Xiao that he chose all of this.

A leisurely sentence:
Mr. Nakadai Tatsuya just played Shingen and his father Shintor in Dahe drama a few years ago, and he is from the Takeda family.
In addition, in "Ran" he played a character Xiuhu, it is generally accepted that the prototype is Mo Li Yuan, except for King Lear (Oath of the Three Arrows), but if you take into account the betrayal by his son and the word "tiger," Takeda actually has a lot The smell of Xinhu...



Xinxuan, just like the Kagemusha denounced, it was not a representative of justice. The Kagemusha promised to be his stand-in, and it was more of a responsibility to protect the benevolent on behalf of the Heavenly Path. The continuation of the family, the inheritance of power. He is the shadow of Xin Xuan, representing some kind of physical benefit. He didn't declare his death for a day, and everything was still there for Xinxuan, power, charisma to the family, Chibei morale, and Fenglinshan Mountain system. Therefore, he stopped the soldiers, and also hinted with the plot of the upright military heart: The greatest significance of the existence of the shadow warrior is not "moving", but "not moving." As Nobunaga said: He is a mountain.

I didn't pay attention to Nobunaga and Ieyasu's portrayal at first glance, but gradually discovered the taste after watching it a few more times. The uncertainty about Shingen's death and the careful inquiry of the iron gunner all hinted at Ieyasu's serious and cautious. Nobunaga teasing Ieyasu to drink red wine is a typical devil's molesting routine. I heard that Shingen would sing "Fifty Years in the World" after his death. But the two people in the new era are obviously different from the older generation.
And because of this, the Nagashio duel has more meaning.




Chang Xiao is now given too much meaning. To remove the legendary feat of Torii Keemon, there are many more: the death of the Takeda family, the establishment of Nobunaga's hegemony, Nobunaga's breakthrough in the encirclement of the net, and so on. According to the real play, the iron cannon will be the first in this battle, and the infantry will follow in hand-to-hand combat. Ieyasu's Mikawa Samurai played immense power in hand-to-hand combat, and he stubbornly managed to defeat Takeda's strong attacking style.
But in the movie, hand-to-hand combat was ignored. The story becomes a simple clue:

Shenglai recklessly asks for battle; he rushes in his arms; Nobunaga's iron cannon strikes in the air. Takeda's cold weapon horseshoe fell under Nobunaga's rifle.
This shot is long and repeated. The cavalry charged faster than ever, and the musket responded more loudly than ever. The Fenglin Volcano flag fell, and Takeda was defeated. The iron cannon on the muzha watched the cavalry fall coldly, calmly.
The Kagemusha finally rushed to the battlefield to try to raise the Fenglin Volcano flag again, and finally the body fell in the Lianzichuan. In 1923, Kurosawa himself experienced such an event: He survived the great earthquake and saw water on the bank of the Sumida River. It was full of corpses.




The battle of Shileyuan was simplified into this story:
the pinnacle of cold weapons, military strategy, and the cavalry Fenglinshan fell under the western and new muskets. Together with the fall, it was Fenglinshan Mountain, which was regarded as a creed in Eastern tactics.
Of course there are shadow warriors, things that are purely in the Eastern spirit: family glory, power inheritance, responsibility, faith. From the beginning he didn't want to join, and finally vowed to die with the Takeda family—or more precisely, the glory of the Takeda family—and fell under the fire of Western-style mechanical guns.
In the end, the shadow warrior went to chase and support, not something that could be battled, but a banner that represented the spirit and had nothing else. This move, together with the banner itself, as well as the loyalty, faith, responsibility, and the red cavalry that the Takeda family regards death as home, is both noble and empty compared to the iron cannon and reform spirit on the opposite side. Standing far and watching, as mentioned above, this is a very oriental movie, without the Shakespeare background that Kurosawa likes. An oriental story tells the story of an Eastern warfare and a Western warfare: a thorough, Oriental classical style of martyrdom.

View more about Kagemusha reviews

Extended Reading

Kagemusha quotes

  • Nobukado Takeda: The shadow of a man can never stand up and walk on its own.

  • Kagemusha: A serious illness can change even a man's heart.